The best elements of his nature had been profoundly moved, and brought to the surface, and he found them alien to the pair on the piazza.

He was even self-reproachful that he saw with so little resentment Stella's present companionship.
"While I don't like her course at all," he thought, "I must believe that she is acting from the most self-sacrificing motives.

What troubles me most now is that I have a growing sense of the narrowness of her nature." He had never come from her presence with his manhood aroused to its depths.

It was her beauty that he dwelt upon; her piquant, alluring tones and gestures.

Madge was not an ill-natured critic of the girl who threatened to destroy her future, but, by being simply what she was, she made the other shrink and grow common by contrast.
To Graydon such comparisons were odious indeed, and he would not willingly permit them; but, in conformity to mental laws and the force of circumstances, they would present themselves.