It can hardly be doubted that he had been smitten by an emotional lightning-stroke, as the French put it, or, as we more gently phrase it, that he had fallen in love at first sight.
As he walked back to the Grange he was regretting that he had not received the social advances of his neighbors with greater warmth.

If, instead of staying firmly at home, he had been moving about among them, he would have met Mrs.Dangerfield earlier and by now be in a fortunate condition of meeting her often.

It did not for a moment enter his mind that if he had met her stiffly in a drawing-room he might easily have failed to fall in love with her at all.

He cudgeled his brains to find some way of meeting her again and meeting her often.

He was to meet her quite soon without any effort on his part.
It is possible that Mrs.Dangerfield had observed that Sir James had been smitten by that emotional _coup de foudre_, for she was walking with a much brisker step and there was a warmer color in her cheeks.
After he had bidden them good-by and had turned back to the Grange, she said in a really cheerful tone: "I expect Sir James finds it rather dull at the Grange after the exciting life he had in Africa." "Rather!", said the Twins with one quickly assenting voice.
She had not missed Sir James' sentence about the superiority of Erebus' blackmailing to her fishing.