Far from wishing to hurt her, he desired to preserve her, and everyone, from trouble and annoyance.

He had told Stephen that his interest in the girl was purely protective.

But since the night when, leaning out into the moonlight, he heard the waggons coming in to Covent Garden Market, a strange feeling had possessed him--the sensation of a man who lies, with a touch of fever on him, listening to the thrum of distant music--sensuous, not unpleasurable.
Those who saw him sitting there so quietly, with his face resting on his hand, imagined, no doubt, that he was wrestling with some deep, abstract proposition, some great thought to be given to mankind; for there was that about Hilary which forced everyone to connect him instantly with the humaner arts.
The sun began to leave the long pale waters.
A nursemaid and two children came and sat down beside him.

Then it was that, underneath his seat, Miranda found what she had been looking for all her life.

It had no smell, made no movement, was pale-grey in colour, like herself.