Each acted as a sort of mental tonic on the other.
They had tacitly agreed, years before, to laugh at most things.

She saw, more distinctly than any, the singular emptiness of his clothes, as if the man was shrinking, and she knew that the emptiness was of the heart.
Sir John Meredith had taught his son that Self and Self alone reigns in the world.

He had taught him that the thing called Love, with a capital L, is nearly all Self, and that it finally dies in the arms of Self.

He had told him that a father's love, or a son's, or a mother's, is merely a matter of convenience, and vanishes when Self asserts itself.
Upon this principle they were both acting now, with a strikingly suggestive similarity of method.

Neither was willing to admit to the world in general, and to the other in particular, that a cynical theory could possibly be erroneous.
"I am sorry that our young friend is going to leave us," said Sir John, taking up and unfolding the morning paper.