Here she decided on an act of some insubordination.

She would wear her best dress that evening, the dress which her mother considered too old for her.

She did not want Pete's mother to think he had chosen a perfect baby.
Mr.Lanley, too, was a trifle nervous during the afternoon.

He tried to say to himself that it was because the future of his darling little Mathilde was about to be settled.

He shook his head, indicating that to settle the future of the young was a risky business; and then in a burst of self-knowledge he suddenly admitted that what was really making him nervous was the incident of the pier.