This was what Mr. Sheldon felt, as the threads of the web which he was
weaving multiplied, and grew daily and hourly more difficult of
manipulation. Success in the work which he had to do depended on so many
contingencies. Afar off glittered the splendid goal--the undisputed
possession of the late John Haygarth's hundred thousand pounds; but
between the schemer and that chief end and aim of all his plottings what
a sea of troubles! He folded his arms behind his head, and looked across
the girlish face of his companion into the shadow and the darkness. In
those calculations which were for ever working themselves out in this
man's brain, Charlotte Halliday was only one among many figures. She had
her fixed value in every sum; but her beauty, her youth, her innocence,
her love, her trust, made no unit of that fixed figure, nor weighed in
the slightest degree with him who added up the sum. Had she been old,
ugly, obnoxious, a creature scarcely fit to live, she would have
represented exactly the same amount in the calculations of Philip
Sheldon. The graces that made her beautiful were graces that he had no
power to estimate. He knew she was a pretty woman; but he knew also that
there were pretty women to be seen in any London street; and the
difference between his stepdaughter and the lowest of womankind who
passed him in his daily walks was to him little more than a social
prejudice.
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