It was no wonder, therefore, that Augustus was at length compelled to
allow himself disappointed. That it was the fault of his
self-confidence made the thing no whit better. He was too much of a
man not to cherish a certain tenderness for her, but he soon found to
his dismay that it had begun to be mingled with a shadow of contempt.
Against this he struggled, but with fluctuating success. He stopped
later and later at business, and when he came home spent more and more
of his time in the smoking-room, where by and by he had bookshelves
put up. Occasionally he would accept an invitation to dinner and
accompany his wife, but he detested evening parties, and when Letty,
who never refused an invitation if she could help it, went to one, he
remained at home with his books. But his power of reading began to
diminish. He became restless and irritable. Something kept gnawing at
his heart. There was a sore spot in it. The spot grew larger and
larger, and by degrees the centre of his consciousness came to be a
soreness: his cherished idea had been fooled; he had taken a silly
girl for a woman of undeveloped wealth;--a bubble, a surface whereon
fair colours chased each other, for a hearted crystal.

On her part, Letty too had her grief, which, unlike Augustus, she did
not keep to herself, receiving in return from more than one of her
friends the soothing assurance that Augustus was only like all other
men; that women were but their toys, which they cast away when weary
of them. Letty did not see that she was herself making a toy of her
life, or that Augustus was right in refusing to play with such a
costly and delicate thing. Neither did Augustus see that, having, by
his own blunder, married a mere child, he was bound to deal with her
as one, and not let the child suffer for his fault more than what
could not be helped. It is not by pressing our insights upon them, but