The one purer feeling in that corrupt heart--his love for Romola--is
almost from the first tainted by the same selfishness. From the first he
recognises that his relation to her will give him a certain position in
the city; and he feels that with his ready tact and Greek suppleness this
is all that is needed to secure his further advancement. The vital
antagonism between his nature and hers bars the possibility of his
foreseeing how her truthfulness, nobleness, and purity shall become the
thorn in his ease-loving life.

In his earlier relations with Tessa, there is nothing more than seeking a
present and passing amusement, and the desire to sun himself in her
childish admiration and delight. He is as far as possible from the
intentional seducer and betrayer. But his accidental encounters with
her, cause him perplexity and annoyance; and at last it seems to him
safer for his own position, especially in regard to Romola, that she
should be secretly housed as she is, and taught to regard herself as his
wife. Soon there comes to be more of ease for him with the
bond-submissive child-mistress, than in the presence of the high-souled,
pure-hearted wife. In the first and decisive encounter with Baldassarre,
the words of repudiation which seal the whole after-character of his
life, apparently escape from him unconsciously and by surprise. But it
is the traitor-heart that speaks them. They could never even by surprise
have escaped the lips, had not the baseness of their denial and desertion
been already in the heart consummated.

We need not follow him through all his subsequent and deepening treasons.
They all, without exception, want every element that might make even
treason impressive. They want even such factitious elevation as their
being prompted by hatred or revenge might lend;--even such broader
interest as their being done in the interest of a party, or for some wide