Waiting Lady Claudia's Pleasure Stafford had probably painted his state of mind in colors somewhat more startling than the reality warranted.

When a man is going to act against his conscience, there is a sort of comfort in making out that the crime has features of more striking depravity than an unbiased observer would detect; the inclination in this direction is increased when it is a question of impressing others.

Sin seems commonplace if we give it no pomp and circumstance.

No man was more free than Stafford from any conscious hypocrisy or posing, or from the inverted pride in immorality that is often an affectation, but also, more often than we are willing to allow, a real disease of the mind.

But in his interview with Morewood he had yielded to the temptation of giving a more dramatic setting and stronger contrasts to his conviction and his action than the actual inmost movement of his mind justified.