Ought he not to have been bitter? Even to the point of hatred? Should he not /still/ be bitter?

Stephen often wondered how much went on inside Con's mind that was never expressed in either words or actions.

"It must be as hot as Hades under there," Constantine said just after they had stopped to exchange pleasantries with a group of male acquaintances. He nodded in the direction of the footpath to their left.

There was a crowd of people walking there, but it was not difficult to see to whom Con referred.

There was a cluster of five ladies, all of them brightly and fashionably dressed in colors that complemented the summer. Just ahead of them were two other ladies, one of them decently clad in russet brown, a color more suited perhaps to autumn than summer, the other dressed in widow's weeds of the deepest mourning period. She was black from head to toe.

Even the black veil was so heavy that it was impossible to see her face, though she was no more than twenty feet away.

"Poor lady," Stephen said. "She must have recently lost a husband."

"At a pretty young age too, by the look of it," Constantine said. "I wonder if her face lives up to the promise of her figure."

Stephen was most attracted to very young ladies, whose figures tended to be lithe and slender. When he did finally turn his thoughts to matrimony, he had always assumed he would look among the newest crop of young hopefuls to arrive on the marriage mart and try to find among such crass commercialism a beauty whom he could like as well as admire and whom he could grow to love. A lady who would be willing to look beyond his title and wealth to know him and love him for who he was.