It could do no harm, and might be of great service.
After the manner of the country gentlemen who in mixed society are apt to prefer their own sex for purposes of converse, Herbert Bannister monopolized Ralph.

His sister talked with Cicely Drane, and in spite of her natural courage and the reasons for self-confidence which she had just received, Dora's spirits steadily fell as she conversed with this merry, attractive girl, who knew so well how to make herself entertaining, even to other girls, and who was actually living in Ralph Haverley's house.
Dora made the visit shorter than it otherwise would have been.

She had come, she had seen, and she wanted to go home and think about the rest of the business.

The drive home was, in a degree, pleasant because Herbert had a great deal to say about Mr.Haverley, whom he had found most agreeable, and because Mrs.Bannister spoke in praise of Ralph's manly beauty, but it would depend upon future circumstances whether or not remarks of this kind could be considered entirely satisfactory.
That evening, in her own room, in a loose dressing-gown, and with her hair hanging over her shoulders, Dora devoted herself to an earnest consideration of her relations with Ralph Haverley.

At first sight it seemed odd that there should be any relations at all, for she had known him but a short time, and he had made few or no advances toward her--not half so many or such pronounced ones as other men had made, during her few visits to fashionable resorts.