Alvan, left to himself, had a quiet belief in the subjugation of his tricksy Clotilde, and the inspiriting he had given her.

All the rest to come was mere business matter of the conflict, scarcely calling for a plan of action.

Who can hold her back when a woman is decided to move?
Husbands have tried it vainly, and parents; and though the husband and the parents are not dealing with the same kind of woman, you see the same elemental power in her under both conditions of rebel wife and rebel daughter to break conventional laws, and be splendidly irrational.
That is, if she can be decided: in other words, aimed at a mark and inflamed to fly the barriers intercepting.

He fancied he had achieved it.

Alvan thanked his fortune that he had to treat with parents.