"Nor am I," retorted Mr. Manners. "I have been all my life a practical man, until lately, when life seems to have been valueless to me."
"I am sorry to hear you say that," said Mark Inglefield, with well-simulated sympathy.
"The sentimental view of a question," continued Mr. Manners, "is a view I have always ignored. I set my own course, and, rightly or wrongly, have followed it. Whether it has brought me happiness or not affects myself only."
"Pardon me for venturing to differ from you," said Mark Inglefield, thinking he saw what might be turned to his advantage; "what you decide upon may affect others as well as yourself."
"I am corrected; it may, and has."
Mark Inglefield inwardly congratulated himself. Not a suspicion crossed his mind that he and Mr. Manners, in this contention, were mentally travelling different roads. He was thinking only of his own interests; Mr. Manners was thinking of Kingsley.
"May I ask," said Mark Inglefield, "whether Miss Hollingworth was present during your interview with her father?"
"She was present at no part of it," replied Mr. Manners.
"Then the difficulty you refer to did not spring from her."
"It did not."