She was not, she knew, a strong-minded woman, and on that very account cared more for the special dominion of her sex.

Since Wilfrid had ceased to be a hobbledehoy, it would have become him to put a little more of the courtier into his manner towards her.

For are there not countries in which their degree of kin is no bar to matrimony?
Mrs.Rossall was of the women who like the flavour of respectful worship in all men who are neither father, brother, nor son.

Wilfrid had fallen short of this, and hence the affectation with which she had persisted in regarding him as a schoolboy.

His latest exploits were vastly more interesting to her than anything he had done in academic spheres, and she suffered a sense of exclusion in seeing him so determined to disregard her opinion.
She persuaded him to row her cut one evening on a lake by which they were spending a few days.