They are neither of them very well: not at present!--Spare them at present.' To avoid being carried away, she flung herself from the centaur's back to the disenchanting earth; she separated herself from him in spirit, and beheld him as her father and mother and her circle would look on this pretender to her hand, with his lordly air, his Jew blood, and his hissing reputation--for it was a reputation that stirred the snakes and the geese of the world.

She saw him in their eyes, quite coldly: which imaginative capacity was one of the remarkable feats of cowardice, active and cold of brain even while the heart is active and would be warm.
He read something of her weakness.

'And supposing I decide that it must be ?' 'How can I supplicate you!' she replied with a shiver, feeling that she had lost her chance of slipping from his grasp, as trained women of the world, or very sprightly young wits know how to do at the critical moment: and she had lost it by being too sincere.

Her cowardice appeared to her under that aspect.
'Now I perceive that the task is harder,' said Alvan, seeing her huddled in a real dismay.

'Why will you not rise to my level and fear nothing! The way is clear: we have only to take the step.