his own mind. There was
some family likeness between the cousins, and it came out in
their common contempt for modern delicacy, which Bernard called
squeamishness and Lawrence damned in more literary language as
the Victorian manner.

The moon dipped lower over the trees while Lawrence took one of
his sharp turns of self-analysis. Most men live in a haze, but
Lawrence was naturally a clear thinker, and he had neither a warm
heart nor a sentimental temperament to blind him. Cleve was
safe: but with his Rabelaisian candour and cultivated want of
scruple Lawrence reflected that Cleve had been anything but safe
at Bingley. Whence the change? From Isabel Stafford! Lawrence
shrugged his shoulders: he was accustomed to examine himself in a
dry light of curiosity, and no vice or weakness shocked him, but
here was pure folly.

What was he doing at Wanhope? "I'm contracting attachments," he
reflected, unbuttoning his silk jacket to feel the night air cool
on his chest, a characteristic action: wind, sunshine, a
wandering scent, the freshness of dew, all the small sensuous
pleasures that most men neglect, Lawrence would go out of his way
to procure. "I'm breaking my rule." Long ago he had resolved
never to let himself get fond of any one again, because in this
world of chance and change, at the mercy of a blindly striking
power, the game is not worth the candle: one suffers too much.

As for Miss Stafford, one need not be a professed stole to draw
the line at a little country girl, pious to insipidity and simple
to the brink of silliness. Here Lawrence, not being one of those
who deny facts when they are unwelcome, caught himself up: she
was not insipid and her power over him was undeniable. Twice
within forty-eight hours she had defeated his will, and what was
stranger was that each time he had surrendered eagerly, feeling
for the moment as though it didn't matter what he said or did
before Isabel.--It was at this point of his analysis that Lawrence
began to take fright. "You rascal," he said to himself, "so that's
why you're off Mrs. Cleve, is it? What is it you want--to marry the
child? You would be sick to death of her in six weeks--and haven't
you had enough of giving hostages to Fortune?"

Hostages to fortune: that pregnant phrase frightens men who fear
nothing else in heaven or earth. But not one of Hyde's friends
knew that he had ever given fortune a hostage. He was not
reserved as a rule: indeed