To the other side, some say that ladies who are used to hourly
admiration cannot endure the passing of a man who seems to admire not
quite wholeheartedly. He who does not admire at all is obviously a fool,
and not worth bothering about. But to him who admits, "You are well
enough," and makes as though to pass on, there is a mystery attached:
and the one way to solve it is to pursue this irritating fellow. Some
(reasoning thus) assert that squinting Manuel was aware of this axiom,
and that he respected it in all his dealings with Freydis and Alianora.
Either way, these theorists did not ever get any verbal buttressing from
Dom Manuel. Niafer dead and lost to him, he, without flaunting any
unexampled ardors, fell to loving Alianora: and now that Freydis had put
off immortality for his kisses, the tall boy had, again, somewhat the
air of consenting to accept this woman's sacrifice, and her loveliness
and all her power and wisdom, as being upon the whole the handiest
available substitute for Niafer's sparse charms.
Yet others declare, more simply, that Dom Manuel was so constituted as
to value more cheaply every desire after he had attained it.
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