It was manifestly impossible that the matter could be left in its present state.
'Leonard,' she said softly and solemnly, 'might not that some day be ?' Leonard, in addition to being an egotist and the very incarnation of selfishness, was a prig of the first water.

He had been reared altogether in convention.

Home life and Eton and Christchurch had taught him many things, wise as well as foolish; but had tended to fix his conviction that affairs of the heart should proceed on adamantine lines of conventional decorum.

It never even occurred to him that a lady could so far step from the confines of convention as to take the initiative in a matter of affection.

In his blind ignorance he blundered brutally.