He owns--when he found himself face to face with her--that his presence of mind completely failed him: he didn't himself know what he was saying at the time.

_He_ lost his head; and _she_ lost her patience.

Think of his nervous confusion in collision with her nervous irritability--and the result explains itself: nothing _could_ come of it but misapprehension and mistake.

I turned the thing over in my mind, after you had left us; and the one course to take that _I_ could see was to accept the position patiently, and to make the best instead of the worst of it.

Having reached this conclusion, I settled the matter (as I settle most other difficulties)--by cutting the Gordian knot.