This did not please Geoffrey; it is one thing (in her own interests, of course) to make up your mind heroically to abandon a lady whom you do not wish to compromise, and quite another to be snubbed by that lady before the moment of final separation.

Though he never put the idea into words or even defined it in his mind--for Geoffrey was far too anxious and unhappy to be flippant, at any rate in thought--he would at heart have wished her to remain the same, indeed to wax ever tenderer, till the fatal time of parting arrived, and even to show appreciation of his virtuous conduct.
But to the utter destruction of most such hands as Geoffrey held, loving women never will play according to the book.

Their conduct imperils everything, for it is obvious that it takes two to bring an affair of this nature to a dignified conclusion, even when the stakes are highest, and the matter is one of life and death.

Beatrice after all was very much of a woman, and she did not behave much better than any other woman would have done.

She was angry and suspicious, and she showed it, with the result that Geoffrey grew angry also.