He was no more praised than he was blamed; but he was tacitly felt to be an ornament to his circle.

He was the man of the world of the family.

He had been to China and brought home a collection of curiosities; he had made a fortune--or rather he had quintupled a fortune already considerable; he was distinguished by that combination of celibacy, "property," and good humor which appeals to even the most subdued imaginations; and it was taken for granted that he would presently place these advantages at the disposal of some well-regulated young woman of his own "set." Mr.Wentworth was not a man to admit to himself that--his paternal duties apart--he liked any individual much better than all other individuals; but he thought Robert Acton extremely judicious; and this was perhaps as near an approach as he was capable of to the eagerness of preference, which his temperament repudiated as it would have disengaged itself from something slightly unchaste.

Acton was, in fact, very judicious--and something more beside; and indeed it must be claimed for Mr.Wentworth that in the more illicit parts of his preference there hovered the vague adumbration of a belief that his cousin's final merit was a certain enviable capacity for whistling, rather gallantly, at the sanctions of mere judgment--for showing a larger courage, a finer quality of pluck, than common occasion demanded.
Mr.Wentworth would never have risked the intimation that Acton was made, in the smallest degree, of the stuff of a hero; but this is small blame to him, for Robert would certainly never have risked it himself.
Acton certainly exercised great discretion in all things--beginning with his estimate of himself.

He knew that he was by no means so much of a man of the world as he was supposed to be in local circles; but it must be added that he knew also that his natural shrewdness had a reach of which he had never quite given local circles the measure.