She was beginning really to enjoy herself in this new game--it required even more skill to torture and hold than to attract and keep at arm's length.
But at last John Derringham could bear no more.
They had continuous lunches and dinners with the gay party of Americans who had been of the company on the first evening, and there was never a moment's peace.

A life in public was as the breath of Cecilia Cricklander's nostrils, and she did not consider the wishes of her betrothed.

In fact, but for spoken sympathy over his shattered condition and inability to walk much, she did not consider him at all, and exacted his attendance on all occasions, whether too fatiguing for him or not.
The very last shred of glamour about her had long fallen from John Derringham's eyes, and indeed things seemed to him more bald than they really were.

His proud spirit chafed from morning to night--chafed hopelessly against the knowledge that his own action had bound him as no ordinary bond of an engagement could.

His whole personality appeared to be changing; he was taciturn or cynically caustic, casting jibes at all manner of things he had once held sacred.