And we oughtn't, you know," she had wound up, "to leave it beyond to-morrow." That, definitely, with ten words more, was what had passed--he feeling all the while how any sort of begging-off would only magnify it.

He might get on with things as they were, but he must do anything rather than magnify.

Besides which it was pitiful to make her beg of him.

He WAS making her--she had begged; and this, for a special sensibility in him, didn't at all do.

That was accordingly, in fine, how they had come to where they were: he was engaged, as hard as possible, in the policy of not magnifying.