Sylvia did not speak; her seeming inattention vexed and perplexed him.

He thought her lacking in appreciation of his frankness.
"Thatcher knows much of this story, but he doesn't know the whole," he went on.

"He believes it was irregular.

He's been keeping it back to spring as a sensation.

He's told those men out there that he can break me; that at the last minute he will crush me.