His tenderness was mere wheedling.

He dropped his feigned melancholy at the door when he put on his overshoes, or took his umbrella.

He used the tone his long intimacy authorized as an instrument to work himself still further into the bosom of the family, and bring Marguerite to a marriage which the whole town was beginning to foresee.

The true, devoted, respectful love formed a striking contrast to its selfish, calculating semblance.

Each man's conduct was homogenous: one feigned a passion and seized every advantage to gain the prize; the other hid his love and trembled lest he should betray his devotion.
Some time after the death of her mother, and, as it happened, on the same day, Marguerite was enabled to compare the only two men of whom she had any opportunity of judging; for the social solitude to which she was condemned kept her from seeing life and gave no access to those who might think of her in marriage.