You are gentle to me and spoil me, and it is only well that one among my old friends should be sincere enough to be ungentle." "I beg your pardon, Rebecca, if I have been uncourteous." "There can be no pardon where there is no offence." "If you are ashamed to hear of your marriage," said the father, "you should be ashamed to think of it." Then there was silence for a few seconds before anyone spoke.

The girls did not dare to speak after words so serious from the father to the son.

It was known to both of them that Anton could hardly bring himself to bear a rebuke even from his father, and they felt that such a rebuke as this, given in their presence, would be altogether unendurable.
Every one in the room understood the exact position in which each stood to the other.

That Rebecca would willingly have become Anton's wife, that she had refused various offers of marriage in order that ultimately it might be so, was known to Stephen Trendellsohn, and to Anton himself, and to Ruth Jacobi.

There had not been the pretence of any secret among them in the matter.