She could not explain--she had never even tried to understand--why this face, which was not in the least a remarkable one, should so profoundly appeal to her.

When George was absent, his look haunted her with the intensity of an hallucination; when at last she saw it again, she felt that nothing else in the world mattered to her, so supreme was the contentment that swept over her.
Though she was more intelligent than Jane, not even Jane herself had surrendered so unconditionally to the primal force.

At least Jane had made exactions, but so complete was the subjugation of Gabriella that she exacted nothing, not even a return of her love.

To give was all she asked, and in the giving she bloomed into a beauty and fullness of nature which Jane's small, closed soul could never attain.
"George!" she called, and went swiftly toward him.
He turned, threw away the cigar in his hand, and held open the gate while she entered.
"There's a jolly little beggar up in the poplar," he said; "I've been watching him for ten minutes." Then, as she passed before him into the parlour, he shut the door, and catching her in his arms, kissed the back of her neck.
"Oh, George!" she murmured, and her voice was like music.

Even to his short-sighted vision there was pathos at the heart of her happiness--the pathos of ignorance, Of innocence, of the reckless generosity of soul that spends its best for the pure joy of spending.