This, obviously, was what counted in a man as delicacy.

If her friend had blurted or bungled he would have said, in his simplicity, "Did we do 'everything to avoid' it when we faced your remarkable marriage ?"--quite handsomely of course using the plural, taking his share of the case, by way of a tribute of memory to the telegram she had received from him in Paris after Mr.Verver had despatched to Rome the news of their engagement.
That telegram, that acceptance of the prospect proposed to them--an acceptance quite other than perfunctory--she had never destroyed; though reserved for no eyes but her own it was still carefully reserved.

She kept it in a safe place--from which, very privately, she sometimes took it out to read it over.

"A la guerre comme a la guerre then"-- it had been couched in the French tongue.

"We must lead our lives as we see them; but I am charmed with your courage and almost surprised at my own." The message had remained ambiguous; she had read it in more lights than one; it might mean that even without her his career was up-hill work for him, a daily fighting-matter on behalf of a good appearance, and that thus, if they were to become neighbours again, the event would compel him to live still more under arms.