It was not that he accused her in his thoughts of any want of delicacy.

He read her character too well; was, if not quite aright in his reading of it, at least too nearly so to admit of his making against her any such accusation as that.

It was the calf-like feeling that was disagreeable to him.

He did not like to be presented, even to the world of Allington, as a victim caught for the sacrifice, and bound with ribbon for the altar.
And then there lurked behind it all a feeling that it might be safer that the thing should not be so openly manifested before all the world.

Of course, everybody knew that he was engaged to Lily Dale; nor had he, as he said to himself, perhaps too frequently, the slightest idea of breaking from that engagement.