However, as the weeks multiplied without bringing him any corresponding increase in the knowledge of either Honora or their true situation, he was aware of a disturbance born of his very pleasure in her; an uncomfortable feeling of insecurity fastened upon him. But all this he was careful to keep hidden. There was evidently no doubt in the minds of Cottarsport of the enviableness of his position--with all that gold, wedded to Honora Canderay, living in the Canderay mansion. The more solid portion of the town gave him a studied consideration denied to the mere acquisition of wealth; and the rough element, once his companion but now relentlessly held at a distance, regarded him with a loud disdain fully as humanly flattering. Sometimes with Honora he passed the latter, and they grumbled an obscure acknowledgment of his curt greeting; when he was alone, they openly disparaged his attainments and qualified pride.
There were "Pack" Clower, an able seaman whose indolent character had dissipated his opportunities of employment without harming his slow, powerful body; Emery Radlaw, the brother of the apothecary and a graduate of Williams College, a man of vanished refinements and taker of strange drugs, as thin and erratically rapid in movements as Clower was slow; Steven, an incredibly soiled Swede; John Vleet, the master and part owner of a fishing schooner, a capable individual on the sea, but an insanely violent drunkard on land. There were others, all widely different, but alike in the bitterness of a common failure and the habit of assuaging doubtful self-esteem, of ministering to crawling nerves, with highly potential stimulation.
Jason passed "Pack" and Emery Radlaw on a day of late March, and a mocking and purposely audible aside almost brought him to an adequate reply. He had disposed of worse men than these in California and the Isthmus. His arrogant temper rose and threatened to master him; but something more powerful held him steadily and silently on his way. This was his measureless admiration for Honora, his determination to involve her in nothing that would detract from her fineness and erect pride. Brawling on the street would not do for her husband. He must give her no cause to lessen what incomprehensible feeling, liking, she might have for him, give life to no regrets for a hasty and perhaps only half considered act. After this, in passing any of his late temporary associates, he failed to express even the perfunctory consciousness of their being.