This conviction, for the young man, deepened and sharpened; yet with the effect, too, of making him glad in spite of it.

It was as if, in calling, he had done even better than he intended.

For it was somehow IMPORTANT--that was what it was--that there should be at this hour something the matter with Mrs.Assingham, with whom, in all their acquaintance, so considerable now, there had never been the least little thing the matter.

To wait thus and watch for it was to know, of a truth, that there was something the matter with HIM; since strangely, with so little to go upon--his heart had positively begun to beat to the tune of suspense.

It fairly befell at last, for a climax, that they almost ceased to pretend--to pretend, that is, to cheat each other with forms.
The unspoken had come up, and there was a crisis--neither could have said how long it lasted--during which they were reduced, for all interchange, to looking at each other on quite an inordinate scale.