He had not even been accepted as a suitor, he who had himself been wooed only a day before.

His proposal of marriage had not been accepted, had not even been considered by the woman who had so lately broken ironclad convention to propose marriage to him.
He had been treated merely as a scapegrace debtor who had come to ask favours from an old friend.

He had even been treated like a bad boy; had been told that he had wasted money; had been ordered, in no doubtful way, to bring the full schedule of his debts.

And all the time he dared not say anything lest the thing shouldn't come off at all.

Stephen had such an infernally masterly way with her! It didn't matter whether she was proposing to him, or he was proposing to her, he was made to feel small all the same.