Her voice, her smile, her charming and courtly manner, all were as when he first beheld her.
"These women--what hypocrites they are!" muttered Maltravers to himself; and his lip writhed into a sneer, which had of late often forced away the serene and gracious expression of his earlier years, ere he knew what it was to despise.

But Maltravers mistook the woman he dared to scorn.
He soon withdrew from the palazzo, and sought his hotel.

There, while yet musing in his dressing-room, he was joined by Ferrers.

The time had passed when Ferrers had exercised an influence over Maltravers; the boy had grown up to be the equal of the man, in the exercise of that two-edged sword--the reason.

And Maltravers now felt, unalloyed, the calm consciousness of his superior genius.