So it was as well perhaps that he kept silence until he said, as he had come prepared to say, 'Well, I want to put that beyond a doubt--her happiness--if I'm good enough.

I want her, please, and I only hope that she will be half as willing to come as you are likely to be to let her go.' It was a shock when it came, plump, like that; and I was horrified to feel how completely every other consideration was lost for the instant in the immense relief that it prefigured.

To be my whole complete self again, without the feeling that a fraction of me was masquerading about in Cecily! To be freed at once, or almost, from an exacting condition and an impossible ideal! 'Oh!' I exclaimed, and my eyes positively filled.

'You ARE good, Dacres, but I couldn't let you do that.' His undisguised stare brought me back to a sense of the proportion of things.

I saw that in the combination of influences that had brought Mr.
Tottenham to the point of proposing to marry my daughter consideration for me, if it had a place, would be fantastic.