In his endeavour not to display a purring smile, he looked grim, as if the compliment were beneath his notice.
'Pray don't think,' she pursued, 'that I wish you to speak more fully about the private circumstances you refer to in your letter.

But do let me ask you: Is your decision final?
Are you sure that when the vacations are over you will see things just as you do now ?' 'I am quite sure of it,' he replied.
The emphasis was merely natural to him.

He could not so govern his voice as to convey the respectful regret which at this moment he felt.
A younger lady, one who had heightened the charm of her compliment with subtle harmony of tones and strongly feminine gaze, would perhaps have elicited from him a free confession.

Gratitude and admiration would have made him capable of such frankness.

But in the face of this newspaper-reading woman (yes, he had unaccountably felt it jar upon him that a lady should be reading a newspaper), under her matronly smile, he could do no more than plump out his 'quite sure'.