He could not pose as a mirror of all virtues, a fanatic for the True and the Good.

Somehow or other he had acquired an air of self-seeking egotism, unscrupulousness, which he felt miserably must make him unlovely in certain eyes.

Nor would the contest he was entering upon improve this fancied reputation of his.

He would have to say hard, unfeeling things against what all the world would applaud as generous sentiment.
When the others had gone yawning to bed, he returned and sat at the window for a little, smoking hard and puzzling out the knots which confronted him.

He had a dismal anticipation of failure.