He saw her redden, and in the irony of her reply he heard her resentment.
He began slipping his smooth, silver watch in his pocket, in the hope that somehow he might help himself back to that calm and fatalistic mood which had been his when he looked at its face upon the bank of the lake, for that mood must, at whatever cost, be the mood of his intercourse with Katharine.

He had spoken of gratitude and acquiescence in the letter which he had never sent, and now all the force of his character must make good those vows in her presence.
She, thus challenged, tried meanwhile to define her points.

She wished to make Denham understand.
"Don't you see that if you have no relations with people it's easier to be honest with them ?" she inquired.

"That is what I meant.

One needn't cajole them; one's under no obligation to them.