He could not help imagining the sort of appearance she would make there; and the thought even was a momentary clog upon his tongue.
How he used to despise these people! Especially he had despised the young men as brainless cowards in regard to their views of women and conduct toward them.

All that was changed.

He fancied now that they, on the contrary, would despise him, if only they could be aware of the lingering sense he entertained of his being in bondage under a sacred obligation to a farmer's daughter.
But he had one thing to discover, and that was, why Sir William had made it a peculiar request that he should come to meet him here.

Could the desire possibly be to reconcile him with Mrs.Lovell?
His common sense rejected the idea at once: Sir William boasted of her wit and tact, and admired her beauty, but Edward remembered his having responded tacitly to his estimate of her character, and Sir William was not the man to court the alliance of his son with a woman like Mrs.Lovell.

He perceived that his father and the fair widow frequently took counsel together.