There she might come eventually to a better knowledge of his personal worth:--'the gold mine we carry in our bosoms till it is threshed out of us in sweat,' that fellow Gower Woodseex says; adding, that we are the richer for not exploring it.

Philosophical cynicism is inconclusive.

Fleetwood knew his large capacities; he had proved them and could again.

In case a certain half foreseen calamity should happen:--imagine it a fact, imagine him seized, besides admiring her character, with a taste for her person! Why, then, he would have to impress his own mysteriously deep character on her portion of understanding.

The battle for domination would then begin.
Anticipation of the possibility of it hewed division between the young man's pride of being and his warmer feelings.