So the two had met.

She had found him admirable and likeable; he found her highly respectable and seemingly unapproachable.

From which cold elements much more may come than one might suppose.
At any rate, now, Mrs.Lessing said nothing when Hilda went to post a letter in London on Sunday morning before breakfast.

She would have mildly remonstrated if the girl had gone to meet the young man.

The which was England once, and may, despite the Kaiser, be England yet once more.
"I was nearly going," she declared.