He ceased to laugh as he thought of her.

A growing sense of uneasiness, of even fear, took possession of him, and chased away the high spirits which his mother's acceptable proposal had given rise to.
He sat down again in his easy chair and began to think.
"It is not," he said to himself, "that I have got into any real scrape with Nina.

I have promised to marry her, of course, and I have made love to her scores and scores of times, but I don't think she has any letters of mine, and in any case, she is not the sort of girl to go to law with a fellow.

No, I have nothing really to fear on that score.

But what perplexes and troubles me is this: she has got a great power over me.
When I am with her I can't think of any one else.