She made Marian Bethune's life for the first few months a burden to her, and then Marian Bethune, who had waited, took the reins in a measure; at all events, she made herself so useful to Lady Rylton that the latter could hardly get on without her.
Maurice had fallen in love with her almost at once; insensibly but thoroughly.

There had been an hour in which he had flung himself, metaphorically, at her feet (one never does the real thing now, because it spoils one's trousers so), and offered his heart, and all the fortune still left to him after his mother's reign; and Marian had refused it all, very tenderly, very sympathetically, very regretfully--to tell the truth--but she _had_ refused it.
She had sweetened the refusal by declaring that, as she could not marry him--as she could not to be so selfish as to ruin his prospects--she would never marry at all.

She had looked lovely in the light of the dying sunset as she said all this to him, and Maurice had believed in her a thousand times more than before, and had loved her a thousand times deeper.

And in a sense his belief was justified.

She did love him, as she had never loved before, but not well enough to risk poverty again.