As if he--Barker--would not have first discovered it, and as if anybody--even dear Kitty herself--was responsible for HIS convictions and actions but himself.
Nevertheless, this gentle egotist was unusually serious, and when the child awoke at last, and with a fretful start and vacant eyes pushed his caressing hand away, he felt lonelier than before.

It was with a slight sense of humiliation, too, that he saw it stretch its hands to the mere hireling, Norah, who had never given it the love that he had seen even in the frivolous Mrs.Horncastle's eyes.

Later, when his wife came in, looking very pretty in her elaborate dinner toilette, he had the same conflicting emotions.

He knew that they had already passed that phase of their married life when she no longer dressed to please him, and that the dictates of fashion or the rivalry of another woman she held superior to his tastes; yet he did not blame her.

But he was a little surprised to see that her dress was copied from one of Mrs.Horncastle's most striking ones, and that it did not suit her.