In spite of his life in society, books and ideas were at this moment much more real to him than men and women.

He judged life from the standpoint of the student and the man of letters, in whose eyes considerations, which would have seemed abstract and unreal to other people, had become magnified and all-important.

In this matter of Wallace and Miss Bretherton he saw the struggle between an ideal interest, so to speak, and a personal interest, and he was heart and soul for the ideal.
Face to face with the living human creature concerned, his principles, as we have seen, were apt to give way a little, for the self underneath was warm-hearted and impressionable, but in his own room and by himself they were strong and vigorous, and would allow of no compromise.
He ruminated over the matter during his solitary meal, planning his line of action.

'It all depends,' he said to himself, 'on that,--if what Wallace says about her is true, if my opinion has really any weight with her, I shall be able to manage it without offending her.

It's good of her to speak of me as kindly as she seems to do; I was anything but amiable on that Surrey Sunday.