"Do you suppose he would have taken all that trouble you have just talked about if he didn't know it?
And feared the consequences, perhaps ?" she added, with a slight return of her previous expressive manner.
Again Paul was puzzled and irritated, he knew not why.

But he only said pleasantly, "I differ from you there.

I am afraid that such a thing as fear never entered into Colonel Pendleton's calculations on any subject.

I think he would act the same towards the highest and the lowest, the powerful or the most weak." As she glanced at him quickly and mischievously, he added, "I am quite willing to believe that his knowledge of you made his duty pleasanter." He was again quite sincere, and his slight sympathy had that irresistible quality of tone and look which made him so dangerous.

For he was struck with the pretty, soothed self-complacency that had shone in her face since he had spoken of Pendleton's equal disinterestedness.
It seemed, too, as if what he had taken for passion or petulance in her manner had been only a resistance to some continual aggression of condition.