Everyone had need of one's power, whereas one's own need, at the best, would have seemed to be but some trick for not communicating it.
The effect of a reserve so merely, so meanly defensive would in most cases, beyond question, sufficiently discredit the cause; wherefore, though it was complicating to be perpetually treated as an infinite agent, the outrage was not the greatest of which a brave man might complain.

Complaint, besides, was a luxury, and he dreaded the imputation of greed.

The other, the constant imputation, that of being able to "do," would have no ground if he hadn't been, to start with--this was the point--provably luxurious.

His lips, somehow, were closed--and by a spring connected moreover with the action of his eyes themselves.

The latter showed him what he had done, showed him where he had come out; quite at the top of his hill of difficulty, the tall sharp spiral round which he had begun to wind his ascent at the age of twenty, and the apex of which was a platform looking down, if one would, on the kingdoms of the earth and with standing-room for but half-a-dozen others.
His eyes, in any case, now saw Mrs.Rance approach with an instant failure to attach to the fact any grossness of avidity of Mrs.Rance's own--or at least to descry any triumphant use even for the luridest impression of her intensity.