Frank was thus conscious that he had
one ally and sympathiser in the midst of that general union of disfavour
that surrounded, watched, and waited on him in the house of Hermiston;
but he had little comfort or society from that alliance, and the demure
little maid (twelve on her last birthday) preserved her own counsel, and
tripped on his service, brisk, dumbly responsive, but inexorably
unconversational. For the others, they were beyond hope and beyond
endurance. Never had a young Apollo been cast among such rustic
barbarians. But perhaps the cause of his ill-success lay in one trait
which was habitual and unconscious with him, yet diagnostic of the man.
It was his practice to approach any one person at the expense of some
one else. He offered you an alliance against the some one else; he
flattered you by slighting him; you were drawn into a small intrigue
against him before you knew how. Wonderful are the virtues of this
process generally; but Frank's mistake was in the choice of the some one
else.
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