If people were going to be as considerate of him as she had proved, why--why-- His dull, Dutch-blue eyes returned to her, fascinated.

The conquest of what he desired and meant to have became merged in a vague plan which included such a marriage as he had dreamed of.
Somebody had once told him that a man who could afford to dress for dinner could go anywhere; meaning that, being a man, nature had fitted his feet with the paraphernalia for climbing as high as he cared to climb.
There was just enough truth in the statement to determine him to use his climbing irons; and he had done so, carrying his fortune with him, which had proved neither an impediment nor an aid so far.

But now he had concluded that neither his god-sent climbing irons, his amiability, his obstinacy, his mild, tireless persistency, nor his money counted.

It had come to a crisis where personal worth and sterling character must carry him through sheer merit to the inner temple--that inner temple of raw gold whose altars are served by a sexless skeleton in cap and bells! Siward, inclined to be amused by the duration of the trance into which Plank had fallen, watched the progress of that bulky young man's infatuation as he sat there on the pool's marble edge, exchanging trivial views on trivial subjects with Mrs.Leroy Mortimer.
But her conversation, even when inconsequential, was never wearisome except when she made it so for her husband's benefit.

Features, person, personality, and temperament were warmly exotic; her dark eyes with their slight Japanese slant, the clear olive skin with its rose bloom, the temptation of mouth and slender neck, were always provocative of the audacity in men which she could so well meet with amusement or surprise, or at times with a fascinating audacity of her own wholly charming because of its setting.
Once, in their history, during her early married life, Siward had been very sentimental about her; but neither he nor she had approached the danger line closer than to make daring eyes at one another across the frontiers of good taste.