Her love raises a man, transfigures him, ennobles his whole life," etc., etc.
"My love did not appear to have quite that effect upon you at the time," said Rachel, regretting the words the moment they were spoken.
Mr.Tristram felt relieved.

Here at last; was the reproach he had been expecting.
He assured her she did well to be angry.

He accused himself once more.
He denounced the accursed morals of the day, above which he ought to have risen, the morals, if she did but know it, of all unmarried men.
"That is a hit at Mr.Scarlett," she said, scornfully, to herself, and then her cheek blanched as she remembered that Hugh was not exempt, after all.

She became suddenly tired, impatient; but she waited quietly for the inevitable proposal.
Mr.Tristram, who had the gift of emphatic and facile utterance, which the conventional consider to be the sign-manual of genius, had become so entangled in the morals of the age that it took him some time to extricate himself from the subject before he could pass on to plead, in an impassioned manner, the cause of the man, unworthy though he might be, who had long loved her, loved her now, and would always love her, in this world and the next.
It was the longest proposal Rachel had ever had, and she had had many.
But if the proposal was long, the refusal was longer.

Rachel, who had a good memory, led up to it by opining that the artistic life made great demands, that the true artist must live entirely for his art, that domestic life might prove a hinderance.