What sentimentalists men were! They couldn't understand,
after the experience of a million years, that the only things
that really counted in life were human relations. They were obliged
to go on playing a game of bluff with their consecrated
superstitions--playing--playing--playing--and yet hiding behind some
graven image of authority which they had built out of stone.
Sentimental, yes, and pathetic too, when one thought of it with
patience.
When dinner was over, and the Judge had gone to a concert in town,
Corinna's mockery fell from her, and she sat in a long silence watching
Benham's enjoyment of his cigar. It occurred to her that if he were
stripped of everything else, of love, of power, of ambition, he could
still find satisfaction in the masculine habit of living--in the simple
pleasures of which nothing except physical infirmity or extreme poverty
can ever deprive one. Moderate in all things, he was capable of taking a
serious pleasure in his meals, in his cigar, in a dip in a swimming
pool, or a game of cards at the club.
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