invitation to meet young Rhodes, because these two, of all men living,
were for the moment dearest to him, as Diana Warwick's true and simple
champions; and he had intended a perfect cordiality toward them both; the
end being a semi-wrangle with the patriot, and a patronizing bluntness
with the boy; who, by the way, would hardly think him sincere in the
offer of a seat at his table. He owned himself incomplete. He never
could do the thing he meant, in the small matters not leading to fortune.
But they led to happiness! Redworth was guilty of a sigh: for now Diana
Warwick stood free; doubly free, he was reduced to reflect in a wavering
dubiousness. Her more than inclination for Dacier, witnessed by him, and
the shot of the world, flying randomly on the subject, had struck this
cuirassier, making light of his armour, without causing any change of his
habitual fresh countenance. As for the scandal, it had never shaken his
faith in her nature. He thought of the passion. His heart struck at
Diana's, and whatever might by chance be true in the scandal affected him
little, if but her heart were at liberty. That was the prize he coveted,
having long read the nature of the woman and wedded his spirit to it.
She would complete him.

Of course, infatuated men argue likewise, and scandal does not move them.
At a glance, the lower instincts and the higher spirit appear equally to
have the philosophy of overlooking blemishes. The difference between
appetite and love is shown when a man, after years of service, can hear
and see, and admit the possible, and still desire in worship; knowing
that we of earth are begrimed and must be cleansed for presentation daily
on our passage through the miry ways, but that our souls, if flame of a
soul shall have come of the agony of flesh, are beyond the baser
mischances: partaking of them indeed, but sublimely. Now Redworth
believed in the soul of Diana. For him it burned, and it was a celestial
radiance about her, unquenched by her shifting fortunes, her wilfulnesses