QUOTE : Smith considered her, interpreting anew the temper and the bitten lip, the grinding teeth, the contempt for stories of courtship or adventure: which, he could now see, might be pre-emptive, rejection before there was a chance of being rejected. He had been warned, with teeth, away from pity; but he could not afford it anyway. It could not be his concern what the effect on her might be, if payment of the bill should damage or ruin Lovell, if it should in some wise undermine the room in which she sat. This was – it was doubly plain now – not the place for him to play, beyond the necessary play to support the business that had brought him. Not the place for any expenditure of sentiment, beyond the general appetite for life it had seemed fitting for a Mr Smith to show. Yet an unwelcome compunction was moving in him, sharp-pointed, stitching him through to the spot where he sat, attaching him by thin threads.