"When is he coming ?" "To-day, I expect." "Thank you." "Claudia, if you take him, you'll let me know ?" "Yes, yes." She seemed so absent and troubled that he left her without more, and made his way to his horse and down the drive, without giving a thought to the contingent lunch.
"She'll marry me if she doesn't marry him," he thought.

"But, I say, I did make rather an ass of myself!" And he laughed gently and ruefully over Claudia's wrath and his own method of wooing.

He would have laughed much the same gentle and rueful laugh over his own hanging, had such an unreasonable accident befallen him.
So far as the main subject of the interview was concerned, Claudia was well pleased with herself.

Her indignation had responded very satisfactorily to her call upon it and had enabled her to work off on Eugene her resentment, not only for his own sins, but also for annoyances for which he could not fairly be held responsible.

A patient lover must be a most valuable safety-valve.