Nor could the difference in their aims affect this feeling
in the least. To a nature like William Pressley's, anything won by
another is something taken from himself. Yet the dislike for Paul
Colbert, which thus hardened within him, had no taint of jealousy in the
ordinary sense of that term. He did not think of Ruth at all in the
matter. It did not occur to him to associate her with this stranger, or
with any one but himself. It was in keeping with his character for him
to be slower than a less vain man to suspect her--or any one whom he
knew--of personal preference for another than himself; for vanity of
this supreme order has its comforts as well as its torments.
On the part of Paul Colbert, the feeling was wholly different, and
largely impersonal. It was merely the dislike that every busy man feels
for a new acquaintance which promises no interest, even at the outset.
Had he been less busy, and his mind more free, he might perhaps have
found some amusement in trying to find out how far this serious young
man was mistaken in his high estimate of himself.
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