He had never been looked at in just that way--with just that fixed, intense smile--by any woman; and it perplexed and weighed upon him, now, that the woman who was smiling so and who had instantly given him a vivid sense of her possessing other unprecedented attributes, was his own niece, the child of his own father's daughter.

The idea that his niece should be a German Baroness, married "morganatically" to a Prince, had already given him much to think about.

Was it right, was it just, was it acceptable?
He always slept badly, and the night before he had lain awake much more even than usual, asking himself these questions.
The strange word "morganatic" was constantly in his ears; it reminded him of a certain Mrs.Morgan whom he had once known and who had been a bold, unpleasant woman.

He had a feeling that it was his duty, so long as the Baroness looked at him, smiling in that way, to meet her glance with his own scrupulously adjusted, consciously frigid organs of vision; but on this occasion he failed to perform his duty to the last.

He looked away toward his daughters.