It struck him that Nature had made up for any little extra outlay in one direction by cruel pinching in another.

It was part of her rigid economy.

She was not going to have any bills running up against her at the other end of the universe.

Nature had indulged in Rhoda Vivian and she was making Miss Quincey pay.
He wondered if that notion had struck Rhoda Vivian too, and if she were trying to make up for it.

He had noticed that Miss Quincey had the power (if you could predicate power of such a person), a power denied to him, of drawing out the woman-hood of the most beautiful woman in the world; some infinite tenderness in Rhoda answered to the infinite absurdity in her.