"Take away the champagne, though.

I shan't want that." Robert bowed in silent appreciation of his master's humour and began ladling out soup at the sideboard.

Tallente's lips were curled a little, partly in self-contempt, with perhaps just a dash of self-pity.
It had come to this, then, that he must dine with fancies rather than alone, that this tardily developed streak of sentimentality must be ministered to or would drag him into the depths of dejection.

He began to understand the psychology of its late appearance.

Stella's artificial companionship had kept his thoughts imprisoned, fettered with the meshes of an instinctive fidelity, and had driven him sedulously to the solace of work and books.