He had loved her in a sort of a way, better left undefined, and had also, almost from the first, hated her a little; for, following her cousin's advice, she had appealed to him to save her, and, when he evaded her prayer, had addressed him in certain terms too appropriate to be agreeable, and too forcible to be forgotten.

His hatred, however, if that be not much too strong a name, was neither virulent nor hot, for it had no inverted love to feed and embitter it.

It was more a thing of his head than his heart, revealing itself mainly in short, acrid speeches, meant to be clever, and indubitably disagreeable.

Nor did Hesper prove an unworthy antagonist in their encounters of polite Billingsgate: what she lacked in experience she made up in breeding.

The common remark, generally false, about no love being lost, was in their case true enough, for there never had been any between them to lose.