For she had not long been one of his _family,_ before he knew, with insight unerring, that she had to be found out, and was therefore an interesting subject for the exercise of his faculty of moral analysis.
He was certain her history was composed mainly of secrets.

As yet, however, he had discovered nothing.
I must just remind my reader of the intellectual passion I have already mentioned as characterizing Mr.Redmain's mental constitution.

His faults and vices were by no means peculiar; but the bent to which I refer, certainly no virtue, and springing originally from predominant evil, was in no small degree peculiar, especially in the degree to which, derived as it was from his father, he had in his own being developed it.

Most men, he judged with himself, were such fools as well as rogues, that there was not the least occasion to ask what they were after: they did but turn themselves inside out before you! But, on the other hand, there were not a few who took pains, more or less successful, to conceal their game of life; and such it was the delight of his being to lay bare to his own eyes-not to those of other people; that, he said, would be to spoil his game! Men were his library, he said-his history, his novels, his sermons, his philosophy, his poetry, his whole literature--and he did not like to have his books thumbed by other people.

Human nature, in its countless aspects, was all about him, he said, every mask crying to him to take it off.