He seemed to have constituted himself as her critic, and she made no objections.

She had given him little bits of stray confidence about herself, and she received everything he had to say with that kind of forbearance which chivalry bids us show to the weak and ailing.

She made allowances for him; but she did more than that for him: she did not let him see that she made allowances.

Moreover, she recognized amidst all his roughness a certain kind of sympathy which she could not resent, because it was not aggressive.

For to some natures the expression of sympathy is an irritation; to be sympathized with means to be pitied, and to be pitied means to be looked down upon.