He noted, though he could not define; felt, though he could not classify.

He was young.

Utterly helpless might have been even an older man in the hands of Mary Connynge at a time like this, Mary Connynge deliberately seeking to ensnare.
"Pardon this robe, but half concealing," said her drooping eye and her half uplifted hands which caught the defining folds yet closer to her bosom.

"'Tis in your chivalry I trust.

I would not so with others." This to the beholder meant that he was the one man on earth to whom so much could be conceded.
Therefore, following to his own undoing, as though led by some actual command, while but bidden gently by the softest voice in all the kingdom, the young man entered the great drawing-room and waited as the butler lessened the shadows by the aid of candles.