No offense intended.

I hope you 'll have a first-rate time." Rowland could honestly reply that this seemed pregnant sense, and he offered Mr.Striker a friendly hand-shake as the latter withdrew.

But Mr.Striker's rather grim view of matters cast a momentary shadow on his companions, and Mrs.Hudson seemed to feel that it necessitated between them some little friendly agreement not to be overawed.
Rowland sat for some time longer, partly because he wished to please the two women and partly because he was strangely pleased himself.

There was something touching in their unworldly fears and diffident hopes, something almost terrible in the way poor little Mrs.Hudson seemed to flutter and quiver with intense maternal passion.

She put forth one timid conversational venture after another, and asked Rowland a number of questions about himself, his age, his family, his occupations, his tastes, his religious opinions.