If you did--" "Would you give it to me ?" "Would you act upon what I gave ?" "That's not a fair inquiry," said she, smiling despite her gravity.

"I don't mind hearing it--what you do really think the most correct and proper course for me." "It is so easy for me to say, and yet I dare not, for it would be provoking you to remonstrances." Knowing, of course, what the advice would be, she did not press him further, and was about to beckon Marty forward and leave him, when he interrupted her with, "Oh, one moment, dear Grace--you will meet me again ?" She eventually agreed to see him that day fortnight.

Fitzpiers expostulated at the interval, but the half-alarmed earnestness with which she entreated him not to come sooner made him say hastily that he submitted to her will--that he would regard her as a friend only, anxious for his reform and well-being, till such time as she might allow him to exceed that privilege.
All this was to assure her; it was only too clear that he had not won her confidence yet.

It amazed Fitzpiers, and overthrew all his deductions from previous experience, to find that this girl, though she had been married to him, could yet be so coy.

Notwithstanding a certain fascination that it carried with it, his reflections were sombre as he went homeward; he saw how deep had been his offence to produce so great a wariness in a gentle and once unsuspicious soul.
He was himself too fastidious to care to coerce her.