Wilfrid had none of the vulgarest vanity; another man would long ago have suspected that this beautiful girl was in love with him; Wilfrid had remained absolutely without a suspicion of the kind.

He had always taken in good faith her declared aversion for his views; he had believed that her nature and his own were definitely irreconcilable.

This was attributable, first of all to his actual inexperience in life, then to the seriousness with which he held those views which Beatrice vowed detestable.

He, too, was an idealist, and, in many respects, destined to remain so throughout his life; for he would never become, on the one hand, the coldly critical man who dissects motives--his own and those of others--to the last fibre, nor yet the superficial cynic who professes, and half-believes, that he can explain the universe by means of a few maxims of cheap pessimism.

So he took, and continued to take, Beatrice's utterances without any grain of scepticism, and consequently held it for certain that she grew less friendly to him as she grew older.
Was it Mrs.Baxendale or Mrs.Birks who at length gave him the hint which set his mind at work in another direction?
Possibly both about the same time, seeing that it was the occasion of Mrs.Baxendale's first making acquaintance with his aunt that dated the beginning of new reflections In Wilfrid.