He could only seem to see Cecilia Cricklander's vulgar soul---the pink and white perfection of her body had melted into nothingness.
He found himself listening for some of her parrot-utterances, as a detached spectator, and taking a sort of ugly pleasure in recognizing which were the phrases of Arabella.

The man upon her left hand was intelligent, and was gazing at her with the rapt attention beauty always commands, and she was uttering her finest platitudes.
And once John Derringham leant back in his chair, when no one was observing him, and laughed aloud.

The supreme mockery of it all! And in five weeks from this night this woman would be his wife! _His wife!_ Ye gods! They had no _tete-a-tete_ words before the party broke up, and had hardly exchanged a sentence when, as the last guest was saying farewell, Arabella, too, retired from the sitting-room.
So they were alone.
"Cecilia," he said, coming up quite close to her, "we started rather badly to-night--at least let us be friends." And he held out his hand.
"Believe me, I wish to do all that I can to please you, but I am afraid I make a very indifferent sort of lover.

Forgive me," "Oh, you are well enough, I suppose," she said.

"No man values what he has won--it is only the winning of it that is any fun.