Not that it was other than usual for Garnache to fling himself whole-heartedly into the conduct of any enterprise he might have upon his hands; but he had come into this affair at Condillac against his will; stress of circumstances it was had driven him on, step by step, to take a personal hand in the actual deliverance of Valerie.
It was vanity and pride that had turned him back when already he was on the road to Paris; not without yet a further struggle would he accept defeat.

To this end had he been driven, for the first time in his life, to the indignity of his foul disguise; and he, whose methods had ever been direct, had been forced to have recourse to the commonest of subterfuges.

It was with anger in his heart that he had proceeded to play the part he had assumed.

He felt it to be a thing unworthy of him, a thing that derogated from his self-respect.

Had he but had the justification of some high political aim, he might have endured it with a better resignation; the momentous end to be served might have sanctioned the ignoble means adopted.