Meanwhile Beatrice preserved silence.
"The fact is," he said at length, "I most sincerely hope you will forgive me, but I have been thinking a great deal about you and your future welfare." "That is very kind of you," said Beatrice, with an ominous humility.
This was disconcerting, but Geoffrey was determined, and he went on in a somewhat flippant tone born of the most intense nervousness and hatred of his task.

Never had he loved her so well as now in this moment when he was about to counsel her to marry another man.

And yet he persevered in his folly.

For, as so often happens, the shrewd insight and knowledge of the world which distinguished Geoffrey as a lawyer, when dealing with the affairs of others, quite deserted him in this crisis of his own life and that of the woman who worshipped him.
"Since I have been here," he said, "I have had made to me no less than three appeals on your behalf and by separate people--by your father, who fancies that you are pining for Owen Davies; by Owen Davies, who is certainly pining for you; and by old Edward, intervening as a kind of domestic _amicus curiae_." "Indeed," said Beatrice, in a voice of ice.
"All these three urged the same thing--the desirability of your marrying Owen Davies." Beatrice's face grew quite pale, her lips twitched and her grey eyes flashed angrily.
"Really," she said, "and have _you_ any advice to give on the subject, Mr.Bingham ?" "Yes, Beatrice, I have.

I have thought it over, and I think that--forgive me again--that if you can bring yourself to it, perhaps you had better marry him.