She did it, ever, inevitably, infallibly--she couldn't possibly not do it.

It was her nature, it was her life, and the man could always expect it without lifting a finger.

This was HIS, the man's, any man's, position and strength--that he had necessarily the advantage, that he only had to wait, with a decent patience, to be placed, in spite of himself, it might really be said, in the right.

Just so the punctuality of performance on the part of the other creature was her weakness and her deep misfortune--not less, no doubt, than her beauty.

It produced for the man that extraordinary mixture of pity and profit in which his relation with her, when he was not a mere brute, mainly consisted; and gave him in fact his most pertinent ground of being always nice to her, nice about her, nice FOR her.