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The Gordons had sent him a reënforcement, and certain of the chiefs had promised their support, but the only aid the Highlanders had given was of dubious value and very disappointing issue. The MacDonalds had hastened to Inverness by way of meeting Dundee, and then had seized the opportunity to plunder their old enemies, the Mackintoshes, and to extract a comfortable ransom out of Inverness.
Nevertheless it is the only moral of the chapter interpolated here, that we can meet things quite as curious in our own country. When the critic says that Jerusalem is disappointing he generally means that the popular worship there is weak and degraded, and especially that the religious art is gaudy and grotesque.
The room was arranged as it had been at the first sitting, except that a table with a candle and a chair had been placed behind a screen for Mrs. Dane's secretary. There was one other change. Sperry had brought the walking-stick he had taken from Arthur Wells's room, and after the medium was in trance he placed it on the table before her. The first questions were disappointing in results.
"I think not. I'm a hot-house plant, you know, and it seems cold outside." "Have the new books come yet?" "Yes, they came yesterday, but I haven't opened the parcel." "I hope they won't prove as disappointing as the last lot. There wasn't a thing I could ask Rosemary to read. I'm continually falling back on the old ones."
Mademoiselle said "Yes yes!" to her part of the programme. But what of the millionaire monsieur? Would he not balk? Would he not refuse to be bothered? Madame was absolutely confident that he would not do these disappointing things. She was so confident that I vaguely suspected she had something up her sleeve: but time pressed, and instead of Sherlock Holmesing I darted to my work.
He conducted himself in his new situation with the most unexceptionable propriety, and the most generous benevolence. But there were men in his audience, men who loved better to criticise, than to be amended; and women, who felt more complacency in scandal, than eulogium. He displeased the one by disappointing them; it was impossible to disappoint the other.
Then the prisoner wept again. It was so disappointing. Life was robbed of everything now. He remembered that in a previous existence soldiers who cried were laughed at and mocked. But that was so far away and it was such an absurd superstition that he had no patience with it. For what could be more comforting to a man when he is treated cruelly than to cry.
At the same time, he could not but feel to blame for having brought this strenuous spirit of Semitzin once more into the world, and he was fain to admit that her claim was not without justification. His motives had been excellent, but he had not foreseen the consequences in which the act was to land him. Yet he more shrank from wronging Miriam than from disappointing Semitzin.
We all know that jewellery does not embellish a plain woman; that, on the contrary, after a minute or two, one ceases to gaze on the gewgaws and then the sight of the ugly face comes as something of a shock. Consider the jarring effect of a noble pearl necklace upon a scraggy neck, and, changing the figure, think how disappointing is a bad dinner served beautifully. There is a French phrase concerning a scanty meal on a flower-decked table that seems in point: Il m'a invité
Yet, as the girl pronounced her judgments on both Brenton and his wife, she was conscious of an immense wave of pity which spent itself entirely upon Brenton. Brenton was weak, was futile, disappointing; nevertheless, it was plain that he was suffering keenly.