A danger of losing her in the material sense would have taught him that better than he as yet knew it; the fear of losing her respect was not attributable solely to his restless egoism.

He had wedded her in quite another frame of mind than that in which he now found himself when he thought of her.

He cared much for the high opinion of people in general; Adela was all but indispensable to him.

When he said, 'My wife,' he must have been half-conscious that the word bore a significance different from that he had contemplated.

On the lips of those among whom he had grown up the word is desecrated, or for the most part so; it has contemptible, and ridiculous, and vile associations, scarcely ever its true meaning.
Formerly he would have laughed at the thought of standing in awe of his wife; nay, he could not have conceived the possibility of such a thing; it would have appeared unnatural, incompatible with the facts of wedded life.