There was no disorder of flight--everything was in its place,
except the drawer of her desk, which was still open, as if she had taken
something from it as an afterthought. There were letters and papers
there, some of his own and some in Captain Pinckney's handwriting. It
did not occur to him to look at them--even to justify himself, or excuse
her. He knew that his hatred of Captain Pinckney was not so much that he
believed him her lover, as his sudden conviction that she was like him!
He was the male of her species--a being antagonistic to himself, whom
he could fight, and crush, and revenge himself upon. But most of all he
loathed his past, not on account of her, but of his own weakness that
had made him her dupe and a misunderstood man to his friends. He had
been derelict of duty in his unselfish devotion to her; he had stifled
his ambition, and underrated his own possibilities. No wonder that
others had accepted him at his own valuation. Clarence Brant was a
modest man, but the egotism of modesty is more fatal than that of
pretension, for it has the haunting consciousness of superior virtue.
He re-entered his own room and again threw himself into his chair. His
calm was being succeeded by a physical weariness; he remembered he had
not slept the night before, and he ought to take some rest to be
fresh in the early morning.
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