failing

“My dear Danglars,” said Morcerf, “we have been acquainted for many years, and consequently we ought to make some allowance for each other’s failings.

Hence it is that men are quick to see the faults of others, and yet are often blind to their own failings.

“_That_ is a failing, indeed!” cried Elizabeth.

His glance was keen but showed cunning rather than intelligence; his lips were straight, and so thin that, as they closed, they were drawn in over the teeth; his cheek-bones were broad and projecting, a never-failing proof of audacity and craftiness; while the flatness of his forehead, and the enlargement of the back of his skull, which rose much higher than his large and coarsely shaped ears, combined to form a physiognomy anything but prepossessing, save in the eyes of such as considered that the owner of so splendid an equipage must needs be all that was admirable and enviable, more especially when they gazed on the enormous diamond that glittered in his shirt, and the red ribbon that depended from his button-hole.