But he was flattered as well.

His instinct and his observation of Mrs.Goddard when in the society of others led him to believe that with Mr.and Mrs.Ambrose, or even with Mr.Juxon, she was not in the habit of talking as she talked with him.

He was therefore inwardly pleased, so soon as his passing annoyance had subsided, to feel that she made a difference between him and others.
It was quite true that she made a distinction, though she did so almost unconsciously.

It was perfectly natural, too.

She was young in heart, in spite of her thirty years and her troubles; she had an elastic temperament; to a physiognomist her face would have shown a delicate sensitiveness to impressions rather than any inborn tendency to sadness.
In spite of everything she was still young, and for two years and a half she had been in the society of persons much older than herself, persons she respected and regarded as friends, but persons in whom her youth found no sympathy.