His nature was a straight level of sensibility--a rough stream between high banks of prejudice, topped with the foam of vanity, now brawling in season, and now going steady and strong to the sea.

Angele had come to feel what he was beneath the surface.

She felt how unimaginative he was, and how his humour, which was but the horse-play of vanity, helped him little to understand the world or himself.

His vanity was ridiculous, his self-importance was against knowledge or wisdom; and Heaven had given him a small brain, a big and noble heart, a pedigree back to Rollo, and the absurd pride of a little lord in a little land.

Angele knew all this; but realised also that he had offered her all he was able to offer to any woman.
She went now and put out both hands to him.