He must be reliable.
After all he's offering me everything." You would have thought, to hear her, that the matter was yet in the balance, swaying uncertainly before it recorded the weight.

There is the instinct of the woman in that.

She felt the shadow of his apprehension; knew that she raised her value in his eyes by the seeming presence of debate.

Yet none realized better than she, that Mr.Arthur had been stripped of all possibility now.

The fateful comparison had been made--the comparison which most women make in the decision of such momentous issues--one man against another.
Their emotions are the agate upon which the scales must swing.