Francis Markrute had left her in entire ignorance of the English customs, for a reason of his own.

He calculated if he informed her that on Tristram's side it was purely a love match, she, with her strange temperament, and sense of honor, would never have accepted it.
He knew she would have turned upon him and said she could be no party to such a cheat.

He with his calm, calculating brain had weighed the pros and cons of the whole matter: to get her to consent, for her brother's sake in the beginning, under the impression that it was a dry business arrangement, equally distasteful personally to both parties--to leave her with this impression and keep the pair as much as possible apart, until the actual wedding; and then to leave her awakening to Tristram--was his plan.

A woman would be impossibly difficult to please, if, in the end, she failed to respond to such a lover as Tristram! He counted upon what he had called her moral antennae to make no mistakes.
It would not eventually prejudice matters if the family did find her a little stiff, as long as she did not actually show her contempt for their apparent willingness to support the bargain.

But her look of scorn, the night before, when he had shown some uneasiness on this score, had reassured him.