Her answers did not tally with his previous knowledge of her.

Perhaps he forgot that he had set his docile pupil rather a long holiday task to learn in his absence, and she had learned it.
"You think you would be happier with some fortune-hunter of an aristocrat than with a plain man of your own class, who, whatever his faults may be, loves you for yourself." Why is it that the word aristocrat as applied to a gentleman is as offensive as that of flunkey applied to a footman?
Rachel drew herself up imperceptibly.
"That depends upon the fortune-hunter," she said, with that touch of _hauteur_ which, when the vulgar have at last drawn it upon themselves by the insolence which is the under side of their courtesy, always has the same effect on them as a red rag on a bull.
In their own language they invariably "stand up to it." Mr.Tristram stood up physically and mentally.

He also raised his voice, causing two rabbits to hurry back into their holes.
Women, he said, were incalculable.

He would never believe in one again.
His disbelief in woman rose even to the rookery in the high elms close at hand.

That she, Rachel, whom he had always regarded as the first among women, should be dazzled by the empty glamour of rank, now that her fortune put such marriages within her reach, was incredible.