But then with bitterness he confessed to himself, for the first time, that his mother was less wise than Katy herself.

He almost called her a fool.

And he at once rejected the thought of appealing to his step-father.

He felt, also, that this was an emergency in which all his own knowledge and intelligence were of no account.

In a matter of affection, a conceited coxcomb, full of flattering speeches, was too strong for him.
The landscape was almost swallowed up.