But there Imre stopped! He bound his warm heart in a chain, he vowed indifference to the whole world, he assisted no advances of warm, particular regard from any comrade. He became that friend of everybody in general who is the friend of nobody in particular! He lived in a state of perpetual defence in his regiment, and in whatever else was social to him in Szent-Istvánhely. So surely as he admired another man—would gladly have won his generous and virile affection—Imre turned away from that man! He covered this morbid state of self-inclusion, this solitary life (such it was, apart from the relatively short intimacy with Karvaly) with laughter and a most artistic semblance of brusqueness; of manly preoccupation with private affairs. Above all, with the skilful cultivation of his repute as a Lothario who was nothing if not sentimental and absorbed in—woman! This is possibly the most common device, as it is the securest, on the part of an Uranian. Circumstances favoured Imre in it; and he gave it its full show of
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