This gentle question, then, was Elizabeth's way of telling him that his hopes were vain and his journey fruitless.
He had not often been crossed in his life, and a flood of resentment surged up in a very perplexed mind.
"Thank you.

Yes--I shall go home by San Francisco." The touch of haughtiness in his manner, the manner of one accustomed all his life to be a prominent and considered person in the world, did not disguise from Elizabeth the soreness underneath.

It was hard to hurt her old friend.

But she could only sit as though she felt nothing--meant nothing--of any importance.
And she achieved it to perfection.

Delaine, through all his tumult of feeling, was sharply conscious of her grace, her reticence, her soft dignity.