Was it not purely an intellectual matter?
She was a girl of superior intellect, and, having found in him some one with whom she could satisfy her desire for rational converse, did she not on this account keep up their relations?
For the rest--well, she liked ease and luxury; above all, ease.

Of that she would certainly make no sacrifice.
How well he could imagine the half-annoyed, half-contemptuous smile which would rise to her beautiful face, if he were so foolish as to become sentimental with her! That, he felt, would be a look not easy to bear.

Humiliation he dreaded.
When eight o'clock came, he was leaning over the end of the pier, at the appointed spot, still busy in thought.

There came a touch on his arm.
"Well, are you thinking how you can make a book out of my story ?" The touch, the voice, the smile,--how all his sophistry was swept away in a rush of tenderness and delight! "I must wait for the end of it," he returned, holding out his hand, which she did not take.
"The end ?--Oh, you must invent one.

Ends in real life are so commonplace and uninteresting." "Commonplace or not," said Waymark, with some lack of firmness in his voice, "the end of your story should not be an unhappy one, if I had the disposing of it.