Instead of treasuring her image as a rarity, he would at most have played with it as a toy.

He was that kind of a man.

But situated here he could not go so far as amative cruelty.

He dismissed all reverential thought about her, but he could not help taking her seriously.
He went on to imagine the impossible.

So far, indeed, did he go in this futile direction that, as others are wont to do, he constructed dialogues and scenes in which Grace had turned out to be the mistress of Hintock Manor-house, the mysterious Mrs.Charmond, particularly ready and willing to be wooed by himself and nobody else.