There are deep-lying sympathies and antipathies, and it may have been that, in spite of the administered justice she enjoyed at his hands, her absence from his mother's house would not have made life barren to him.

But Ralph Touchett had learned more or less inscrutably to attend, and there could have been nothing so "sustained" to attend to as the general performance of Madame Merle.

He tasted her in sips, he let her stand, with an opportuneness she herself could not have surpassed.

There were moments when he felt almost sorry for her; and these, oddly enough, were the moments when his kindness was least demonstrative.

He was sure she had been yearningly ambitious and that what she had visibly accomplished was far below her secret measure.