He could have thought no man, not the most illustrious, worthy of her.

And there she was, voluntarily in the hands of a monster! 'Husband!' Mr.Adister broke away from Caroline, muttering: 'Her husband's policy!' She was used to his interjections; she sat thinking more of the strange request to her to show Mr.O'Donnell the miniature of Adiante.

She had often thought that her uncle regretted his rejection of Philip.
It appeared so to her now, though not by any consecutive process of reasoning.

She went to fetch the miniature, and gazing on it, she tried to guess at Mr.O'Donnell's thoughts when doing the same; for who so inflammable as he?
And who, woman or man, could behold this lighted face, with the dark raised eyes and abounding auburn tresses, where the contrast of colours was in itself thrilling, and not admire, or more, half worship, or wholly worship?
She pitied the youth: she fancied that he would not continue so ingenuously true to his brother's love of Adiante after seeing it; unless one might hope that the light above beauty distinguishing its noble classic lines, and the energy of radiance, like a morning of chivalrous promise, in the eyes, would subdue him to distant admiration.

These were her flitting thoughts under the spell of her queenly cousin's visage.