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And looking at the constant stream of motors passing, she inquired, "How many of us are there, in this imposing procession, who haven't a single friend in town?" How they all passed on. How coolly indifferent, self-absorbed! Was there no entering wedge to their lives?
If one could test and intercept the secret and unoccupied reveries of men, when the mind moves idly among the objects which most concern it, it would be found, I do not doubt, that men's minds occupy themselves much more about definite and tangible things their work, their duties, their ambitions, their amusements and centre little upon the thought of other people; an affection, an emotional relation, is much more of an incident than a settled preoccupation; and then with men there are two marked types, those who give and lavish affection freely, who are interested and attracted by others and wish to attach and secure close friends; and there are others who respond to advances, yet do not go in search of friendship, but only accept it when it comes; and the singular thing is that such natures, which are often cold and self-absorbed, have a power of kindling emotion in others which men of generous and eager feeling sometimes lack.
She found that the ideas she had just employed to pacify the servants' hall were also in her father's thoughts. From them, however, he won no consolation, though he stood convinced. But the fact that Septimus May should have failed, and paid for his failure with his life, now assumed its true significance for Sir Walter. He was self-absorbed, prostrate, and desperate.
It was morning in the great room, morning for the southern day, morning for the old plantation whose bell now jangled faintly and afar off morning indeed for Miss Lady, who now had ceased in her self-absorbed dance. At this very moment, as she stood gazing into the mirror, with the sunlight and the roses thus at hand, one might indeed have sworn that it was morning for ever, over all the world!
It was so like Oliver to be silent and self-absorbed when he was anxious. Through the day he was absent, and when he returned, in the evening, to dress for the theatre, she was standing before the mirror fastening the bunch of orchids on the front of her gown. As he entered, she turned toward him with a look of eager interest, of pleasant yet anxious excitement.
But the present is full of encouragement. The new life has begun: the woman is here; not the martyred woman of the past; not the self-absorbed woman of the present, but the awakened woman of the future.
During supper Semenoff had joked and laughed more perhaps than anyone else, but now he walked along, gloomy and self-absorbed, and in his hollow cough there was something hopeless and threatening like the disease from which he suffered. "Ah! it's you!" he said, somewhat peevishly, as Yourii thought. "I wasn't sleepy. I'll walk back with you, if you like." "Yes, do!" replied Semenoff, carelessly.
Save for the rim of towns across the bay, which were little more than a part of itself, it watched the Orient alone, and was far too gay and careless, too self-absorbed and insolent, to keep its jaws on the alert. Tact it was much too high-handed to cultivate. It welcomed the hungry Oriental for so long as he was useful, and when he outstayed his welcome, incontinently kicked him out.
As he emerged into the open of the lawn he saw a gentleman standing somewhat listlessly, self-absorbed, as though he were not a party to the incessant turmoil of the others, who were as men mad. With a faith born of limited experience, Mortimer risked another hazard. He would ask this complacent one for guidance. What he had to do justified all chances of rebuke.
If those who saw him depart could but have divined the errand he was bent on, what a commotion would have spread over Deerham! If the handsome lady, seated opposite to him, the only other passenger in that compartment, could but have read the cause which rendered him so self-absorbed, so insensible to her attractions, she would have gazed at him with far more interest.
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