I believe he avoided asking himself where the enjoyment of the hour was leading, and I fancy he found it more easy to set aside the question because of the difference between their social positions. Possibly he regarded himself as honouring the low neighborhood of Addison Square by the frequency of his shining presence. At the same time, he was feeling the good influences more than he realized or would have liked to acknowledge. For he had never turned his mind in the direction of good. It was far more from circumstance than refusal that he was not yet the more hurtful member of society which his no-principles were surely working to make him.

Hester was, of course, greatly interested in him. She had been but little in society, had not studied men in the least, and could not help being pleased with the power she plainly had over him. Even Corney, not very observant or penetrating, remarked on the gentleness of Vavasor’s behaviour in their house. He followed every word of Hester’s concerning his singing, and showed himself even anxious to win her praise by the pains he took to improve. He ceased to bring forward his heathenish notions about human helplessness and fate, and listened to her statements about the individual mission of every human being with an almost humble and attentive manner. Whether any desire of betterment was now awake in him through the power of her spiritual presence, I cannot tell. At first Hester thought only of doing him good. And it was not until she imagined some success in that vein that the true danger to her began.

After that, with every fresh encouragement the danger grew—for in equal proportion grew the danger of self coming in and getting the upper hand.

I do not suppose that Vavasor once consciously planned to actually deceive her, or make her think him better than he thought himself. With a woman of Hester’s instincts, there might have been less danger if he had. But if he had any, he had but the most rudimentary notion of truth in the inward parts, and could deceive another all the better that he did not know he was deceiving. He had just as little notion of the nature of the person he was dealing with, or the reality to her of the things she spoke about—belief was, to him, the mere difference between opinions. She spoke the language of a world whose existence he was incapable of recognizing, for he had never obeyed one of its demands. His natural inborn proclivities to the light had, through his so seldom doing the deeds of the light, become so weak, that he hardly knew such a thing as reform was required of, possible to, or desirable in him. Nothing seemed to him to matter except “good form.” To see and hear him for a few minutes after leaving her and entering his club, would have been safety to Hester. I do not mean that he was of the baser sort there, but whatever came up there, he would meet on its own grounds, and respond to in its own kind.