Playing these forces off not merely against each other, but against themselves as well--for, as he pointed out, there was no harmony in the separate camps--he evolved an infinite number of endless complications.

There was consequently no end to the discussion, not even when Clarice was argued through the marriage ceremony.

For that point Fielding took to represent the one o'clock in the morning of a carnival ball; then the fun really begins, though decent people have to go away.
Mrs.Willoughby was, as ever, staunch in her defence, though a recollection of Clarice's tearful visit with Conway's arrival for a climax prompted her now and again to laugh in the midst of it.
'You mistake thoughtlessness for tricks,' she said.

'Clarice is only a child as yet.' 'She has a child's capacity for emotion, I admit,' corrected Fielding, 'but a woman's knowledge of its use.

The combination is deplorable.' Fielding inquired about Drake, and was told that he had not been seen lately.