He told me so in the course of his artless boasting as to what he might some day be able to do for the precious little creature of his own flesh and blood; and the grandmother owns her comfortable place next door, and she herself was dressed in black silk, and I will swear the lace on her cap was real, and she wore a great brooch containing hair of the departed, and it was set in pearl.

What are you going to do in the face of opulence like this, Cynthia ?" Cynthia did not speak; her face looked as still as if it were carved in ivory.
"Cynthia," said the man, in a harsh voice, "I did not dream you were so broken up over losing that little boy of your sister's, poor girl." Cynthia still said nothing, but a tear rolled down her cheek.

Lyman Risley saw it, then he looked straight ahead, scowling over his cigar.

He seemed suddenly to realize in this woman whom he loved something anomalous, yet lovely--a beauty, as it were, of deformity, an over-development in one direction, though a direction of utter grace and sweetness, like the lip of an orchid.
Why should she break her heart over a child whom she had never seen before, and have no love and pity for the man who had laid his best at her feet so long?
He saw at a flash the sweet yet monstrous imperfection of her, and he loved her better for it..