Peter, we may suppose, returned to Villa Floriano that afternoon in a state of some excitement.
“He ought to have told her—”
“It was her right to be told—”
“What could her rank matter—”
“A gentleman can offer his hand to any woman—”
“She would have despised the conventional barriers—”
“No woman could be proof against such a compliment—”
“The case was peculiar—ordinary rules could not apply to it—”
“Every man gets the wife he deserves—and he had certainly gone a long way towards deserving her—”
“He should simply have told her the story of his book and of her part in it—he need n't have mentioned love—she would have understood—”