"I'm worth ... I must be worth ... a hundred thousand pounds ... perhaps more."
"Oh, you mean, square him in that way."
"I must be a man of honor before everything, by Jove!"
"You couldn't be anything else. You don't need to go to extremes like that to prove it."
Her lack of emotion, of glad enthusiasm, chilled him. She even ceased to look at him, turning her profile toward him and gazing again abstractedly across the lawn. A sudden fear took hold of him, the fear that his hesitations, his evident difficulty in getting the thing out, had enabled her to follow the processes by which he whipped himself up to an act that should have been spontaneous. He had a suspicion, too, that in this respect he had fallen short of the American—the cowboy, as he had called him. "I must do better than him," he said, in his English idiom. The thought that he might not have done as well was rather sickening. If he had so failed it was through inadvertence, but the effect on Olivia would be as great as if it was from fear. To counteract it he felt the need of being more emphatic. His emphasis took the form of simple common sense.
"It isn't going to extremes to take up one's own responsibilities. I can't let a fellow like that do things for your father any more than for mine, by Jove! It's not only doing things for my father, but for—my wife."
Drawing up a small chair, he sat down on the other side of the table. He sat down with the air of a man who means to stay and take possession.
"Oh, but I'm not your wife, Rupert."
"You're my wife already," he declared, "to all intents and purposes. We've published our intention to become man and wife to the world. Neither of us can go back on that. The mere fact that certain words haven't been mumbled over us is secondary. For everything that constitutes duty I'm your husband now."
"Oh no, you're not. You're the noblest man in the world, Rupert. I never dreamed that there could be any one like you. But I couldn't let you—I couldn't—"