"Who knows?
Poor old Roxbury wouldn't have had the tact to inquire." "I am a henpecked bachelor, believe me." For the next quarter of an hour they chatted in the liveliest, most inconsequential fashion, getting on excellent terms with each other and arriving at a fair sense of appreciation of what lay ahead of them in the shape of peril and adventure.
She was the most delightful person he had ever met, as well as being the most beautiful.

There was a sprightly, ever-growing air of self-reliance about her that charmed and reassured him.

She possessed the capacity for divining the sane and the ridiculous with splendid discrimination.
Moreover, she could jest and be serious with an impartial intelligence that gratified his vanity without in the least inspiring the suspicion that she was merely clever.

He became blissfully imbued with the idea that she had surprised herself by the discovery that he was really quite attractive.

In fact, he was quite sincerely pleased with himself--for which he may be pardoned if one stops to think how resourceful a woman of tact may be if she is very, very pretty.
And, by way of further analogy, Brock was a thoroughly likable chap, beside being handsome and a thoroughbred to the core.