Every present circumstance helped to proclaim it; it was blown into their faces as by the lips of the morning.

He knew why, from the first of his marriage, he had tried with such patience for such conformity; he knew why he had given up so much and bored himself so much; he knew why he, at any rate, had gone in, on the basis of all forms, on the basis of his having, in a manner, sold himself, for a situation nette.

It had all been just in order that his--well, what on earth should he call it but his freedom ?--should at present be as perfect and rounded and lustrous as some huge precious pearl.

He hadn't struggled nor snatched; he was taking but what had been given him; the pearl dropped itself, with its exquisite quality and rarity, straight into his hand.

Here, precisely, it was, incarnate; its size and its value grew as Mrs.Verver appeared, afar off, in one of the smaller doorways.