Their glances met; to his surprise hers was smileless, and instantly withdrawn, but not until he had been thrilled by an unconscious prepossession in its luminous depths that he scarcely dared to dwell upon.

What mattered now this passage with Don Caesar or the plaudits of his friends?
SHE was proud of him! Yet, after that glance, she was shy, preoccupying herself with Milly, or even listening sweetly to Judge Baker's somewhat practical and unromantic reminiscences of the deprivations and the hardships of California early days, as if to condone his past infelicity.

She was pleasantly unaffected with Don Caesar, although she managed to draw Dona Anna into the conversation; she was unconventional, Paul fancied, to all but himself.

Once or twice, when he had artfully drawn her towards the open French window that led to the moonlit garden and shadowed veranda, she had managed to link Milly's arm in her own, and he was confident that a suggestion to stroll with him in the open air would be followed by her invitation to Milly to accompany them.
Disappointed and mortified as he was, he found some solace in her manner, which he still believed suggested the hope that she might be made accessible to his persuasions.

Persuasions to what?
He did not know.
The last guest had departed; he lingered on the veranda with a cigar, begging his host and hostess not to trouble themselves to keep him company.