Once again he had run against the iron hidden under the bloom.
"Then you refuse absolutely ?" he asked, and though his voice quivered still, it was no longer from tenderness.

He hated stubbornness, and, most of all, he hated it in the woman who was going to be his wife.

A life of continual contradiction, he felt, would be intolerable.

A strong will, which he had always admired in himself, became a positive failing in Gabriella.

A woman's strength lay, after all, not in force of character, but in sweetness of nature.