For what alternative had she rebuffed him?
Redgrave's sagacity had guided him well up to a certain point, but it had lost sight of one thing essential to the success of his scheme.
Perhaps because he was forty years of age, perhaps because he had so often come and seen and conquered, perhaps because he made too low an estimate of Bennet Frothingham's daughter,--he simply overlooked sentimental considerations.

It was a great and a fatal oversight.

He went far in his calculated appeal to Alma's vanity; had he but credited her with softer passions, and given himself the trouble to play upon them, he would not, at all events, have suffered so sudden a defeat.
Men of Redgrave's stamp grow careless, and just at the time of life when, for various causes, the art which conceals art has become indispensable.

He did not flatter himself that Alma was ready to fall in love with him; and here his calm maturity served him ill.

To his own defect of ardour he was blinded by habit.