It may be only about sewing on a button, or about the weather, or it may concern great issues; but it is always the same when it comes: it exasperates weak men, and the stronger sort like it, as they more especially delight in all that is womanly in woman, from heroic virtue to pathetic weakness.
'Nothing can happen in a month to prevent you from resigning then, as you could to-day,' Angela said confidently.
The faint smile disappeared, and she grew thoughtful, not for herself, but for him, and looked at Saint Ursula again.

Her hand still lay in his, on the edge of the mantelpiece, and while she gazed at the engraving she knew that he was looking at her and was moving nearer; she felt that he was going to kiss her, but she did not resist this time though the colour was rising in her throat, and just under the exquisitely shaped petal of peach-blossom on which his eyes were fixed, and which was really only the tip of her ear, though it was so like the leaf of a flower that the scent of the bloom came to his memory when his lips touched the spot at last.
His hand shut closer over hers at the same moment, and hers fluttered under his fingers like a small soft bird; but there was no resistance.
He kissed the tip of her ear, and she turned towards him a little; his kiss pressed her cool cheek, and she moved again; their eyes met, very near, and dark, and full of light, and then his lips touched hers at last.
Destiny has many disguises and many moods.

Sometimes, as on that day at the telephone, the unexpected leaps up from its hiding-place and strikes stunning blows, right and left, like Orestes among the steers in Tauris, or a maniac let loose among sane men; but sometimes Fate lurks in her lair, silently poring over the tablets of the future, and she notes all we say, scrawling 'Folly' against our wisest speeches, and stamping 'So be it' under the carelessly spoken jest.
She was busy while the young lovers kissed for the first time, by the mantelpiece; but no inward warning voice had told Angela that she herself was sealing the order of her life irrevocably when she gave Giovanni the best advice she could, and he accepted it to please her, making his instinct obey his judgment for her sake.

A man is foolish who takes an important step without consulting the woman who loves him most dearly, be she mother, sister, wife, or sweetheart; but he is rarely wise if he follows her advice, like a rule, to the letter, for no woman goes from thought to accomplishment by the same road as a man.

You cannot make a pointer of a setter, nor teach a bulldog to retrieve.
If Giovanni had sent in his resignation that evening, or even during the next day, as he was ready to do, it would have been accepted in the ordinary course of things; he would then, without doubt, have found employment for his talents and energy, either at home or abroad.
He would in all probability have succeeded in life, because he possessed the elements of success; he would have married Angela in due time, and the two would probably have lived happily for many years, because they were suited to each other in all ways and were possessed of excellent constitutions.