I approved of the arrangement, because the mutually distant understanding that existed between Mr.Mafferton and me had already been the subject of remark by my parents.

("For old London acquaintances you and Mr.Mafferton seem to have very little to say to each other," momma had observed that very morning.) It was borne in upon me that this was absurd.

People have no business to be estranged for life because one of them has happened to propose to the other, unless, of course, he has been accepted and afterwards divorced, which is quite a different thing.
Besides, there was Dicky to think of.

I decided that there was a medium in all things, and to help me to find it I wore a blouse from Madame Valerie in the Rue de l'Opera, which cost seven times its value, and was naturally becoming.

Perhaps this was going to extreme measures; but he was a recalcitrant Englishman, and for Dicky's sake one had to think of everything.
Englishmen have a genius for looking uncomfortable.