Never much versed in the ways of women, he was fairly puzzled by his daughter's strange method of taking his confidence.

He knew, of course, of the tactics of his wife, which he had deplored at the time, though he had been unable to bring her to a better frame of mind; but since the young people liked each other, and since madam was in her grave, it seemed absurd to let a shadow stand between them and their happiness.

Perhaps if left to herself Gertrude would reach that conclusion of her own accord, and the Master Builder rose to go without pressing the matter further.
Gertrude, left alone, was weeping silently and bitterly beside the child's cot, when she was aware of a little short laugh almost at her elbow, and a familiar voice said in sharp accents: "Good child! I like a woman with a spirit of her own.

Go on as you have begun, and don't let him think he is to have it all his own way.

Lovers are all very well, but husbands soon show their wives how cheap they hold them when they have won them all too cheap.
Throw him aside in scorn! Let him not think or see that you care a snap of the fingers for him.