They both missed the rich future, but she missed it most, because after all it was to have been entirely hers; and it was her acceptance of the loss that gave him the full measure of her preference for the thought of Acton Hague over any other thought whatever.

He had humour enough to laugh rather grimly when he said to himself: "Why the deuce does she like him so much more than she likes me ?"--the reasons being really so conceivable.

But even his faculty of analysis left the irritation standing, and this irritation proved perhaps the greatest misfortune that had ever overtaken him.

There had been nothing yet that made him so much want to give up.

He had of course by this time well reached the age of renouncement; but it had not hitherto been vivid to him that it was time to give up everything.
Practically, at the end of six months, he had renounced the friendship once so charming and comforting.