This, Mrs.
Assingham professed, was exactly what would endear them to her, and that, in turn, drew from her visitor a fresh declaration of all the comfort of his being able so to depend on her.

He had been with her, at this point, some twenty minutes; but he had paid her much longer visits, and he stayed now as if to make his attitude prove his appreciation.

He stayed moreover--THAT was really the sign of the hour--in spite of the nervous unrest that had brought him and that had in truth much rather fed on the scepticism by which she had apparently meant to soothe it.
She had not soothed him, and there arrived, remarkably, a moment when the cause of her failure gleamed out.

He had not frightened her, as she called it--he felt that; yet she was herself not at ease.

She had been nervous, though trying to disguise it; the sight of him, following on the announcement of his name, had shown her as disconcerted.