They did their best to keep up a desultory conversation, perhaps, because they wished to spare each other the embarrassment which silence would have caused, in leaving the pleasant condition of affairs without a veil.

When this kind of thing first begins to be realized between young people, the enjoyment takes on a more delicate flavor from a pretended ignoring of it.
It is beautiful to imagine them thus placed in a situation to which both were strangers, knowing not what new delight the next moment might bring forth.

There was an element of childlikeness and innocence about it, the more pleasing to behold in proportion as they were elevated in mind or organization above the average of mankind.
A woman who loves thinks first of the man who has her heart; while he, as a general rule, is primarily concerned with himself.

If Bressant wished Cornelia to be happy and loving, it was in order that he himself might thereby be incited to greater love and happiness; but, had her pleasure been, independent of his own, he would not have troubled himself about it.

To her, on the other hand, Bressant's well-being would have been paramount to her own, and to be preserved, if need were, at its sacrifice.
Even a perception, on her part, of this selfishness in him, would not have alienated her.