Redmain, but at first he accompanied his wife everywhere.
No one knew better than he that not an atom of love had mingled
with her motives in marrying him; but for a time he seemed bent
on showing her that she needed not have been so averse to him.
Whether this was indeed his design or not, I imagine he enjoyed
the admiration she roused: for why should not a man take pride in
the possession of a fine woman as well as in that of a fine
horse? To be sure, Mrs. Redmain was not quite in the same way,
nor quite so much his, as his horses were, and might one day be a
good deal less his than she was now; but in the mean time she
was, I fancy, a pleasant break in the gathering monotony of his
existence. As he got more accustomed to the sight of her in a
crowd, however, and at the same time to her not very interesting
company in private, when she took not the smallest pains to
please him, he gradually lapsed into his former ways, and soon
came to spend his evenings in company that made him forget his
wife. He had loved her in a sort of a way, better left undefined,
and had also, almost from the first, hated her a little; for,
following her cousin's advice, she had appealed to him to save
her, and, when he evaded her prayer, had addressed him in certain
terms too appropriate to be agreeable, and too forcible to be
forgotten. His hatred, however, if that be not much too strong a
name, was neither virulent nor hot, for it had no inverted love
to feed and embitter it.
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