He did not intend to do such things.
Love should be strictly subordinate to a man's career; women should be subordinate.
At the same time, from the second week of their acquaintance on the Riviera, he had wished to marry Constance Bledlow.

He had proposed to her, only to be promptly refused, and on one mad afternoon, in the woods of the Esterels, he had snatched a kiss.

What an amazing fuss she made about that kiss! He thought she would have cut him for ever.

It was with the greatest difficulty, and only after a grovelling apology, that he had succeeded in making his peace.

Yet all through the days of her wrath he had been quite certain that he would in the end appease her; which meant a triumphant confidence on his part that to a degree she did not herself admit or understand, he had captured her.