This was like beginning something over, which was the last thing he wanted.

The strength, the beauty of his actual position was in its being wholly a fresh start, was that what it began would be new altogether.

These items of his consciousness had clustered so quickly that by the time Charlotte read them in his face he was in presence of what they amounted to.

She had challenged them as soon as read them, had met them with a "Do you want then to go and tell her ?" that had somehow made them ridiculous.
It had made him, promptly, fall back on minimizing it--that is on minimizing "fuss." Apparent scruples were, obviously, fuss, and he had on the spot clutched, in the light of this truth, at the happy principle that would meet every case.
This principle was simply to be, with the girl, always simple--and with the very last simplicity.

That would cover everything.