"He takes it very properly," said Mr Bennett, rubbing his hands. "Of course it puts me to a little inconvenience, and he spoke very well about it, very well. Offered to stay, and said quite the right thing. But I should not take any advantage of that sort, as you may suppose. He'll go to the University, I imagine, and probably to the bar afterwards. Odd world, Ada, my dear, isn't it?" As for Ada, the tears had rushed suddenly into her eyes. She murmured something in reply, but the weight of disappointment which she felt almost frightened herself, and when she made a faint attempt to assure herself that Mr Warren was nothing to her, it was only to become conscious that he was truly the embodiment of those things for which she most cared,--brightness, compliments, admiration, attention; and now--how much more besides! Ada was only romantic when romance did not interfere with more solid comforts, but to have all within her reach, and yet to be obliged to turn away, was a trial which touched her sorely. It seemed to develop a vein of bitterness, as opposed as possible to the petty prettinesses of her life, which made her thoroughly uncomfortable, and which she tried to dignify by the name of misery, although her feelings were at no time deep enough to admit of strong names. It added to her vexation that, so short a time ago, Anthony should himself have offered to free her from her engagement. Her vanity found so pleasant an excuse for his words in setting them down to a fear on his part that she should not be fully satisfied, that she felt no anger towards him for what he had said, but it provoked her that it should not have been later, when she might have been guided by these new circumstances. Marriage with Mr Warren had hitherto been out of the question; and now that its possibility was suddenly presented to her, Ada wept the bitterest tears of disappointment she had ever shed in her life. People with whom life has gone smoothly are not disposed to admit of any course of events whereby they are defrauded, as they think, of the good things that yet should fall to their share; the very shadow of withdrawal astonishes them in a manner which is not without its pathetic side to those who have tasted draughts out of the depths. There is, too, in these natures, often a curious power of centralisation, so that their own life becomes the point round which all others revolve, and in relation to which all others are considered. Ada would have understood the sin of another girl acting in what the world would call a heartless fashion; yet, so far as Anthony's heart was concerned, she looked at it only as made for the satisfaction of her own; so that it would not have entered her head that suffering which seemed wrong and unendurable for herself might not properly have fallen to his share, and indeed there was, perhaps, a feeling as if a balance were struck with Providence, by admitting the necessity of tribulation for other people.