She was, as he said to himself, “by odds, the nicest girl that he had ever seen.”  Whatever might now turn up, her happiness should be his first care.  But as for his own,—­he began to fear that the compensation would hardly be perfect.  “It is my own doing,” he said to himself, intending to be rather noble in the purport of his soliloquy, “I have trained myself for other things,—­very foolishly.  Of course I must suffer,—­suffer damnably.  But she shall never know it.  Dear, sweet, innocent, pretty little thing!” And then he went on about the squire, as to whom he felt himself entitled to be indignant by his own disinterested and manly line of conduct towards the niece.  “But I will let him know what I think about it,” he said.  “It’s all very well for Dale to say that I have been treated fairly.  It isn’t fair for a man to put forward his niece under false pretences.  Of course I thought that he intended to provide for her.”  And then, having made up his mind in a very manly way that he would not desert Lily altogether after having promised to marry her, he endeavoured to find consolation in the reflection that he might, at any rate, allow himself two years’ more run as a bachelor in London.  Girls who have to get themselves married without fortunes always know that they will have to wait.  Indeed, Lily had already told him, that as far as she was concerned, she was in no hurry.  He need not, therefore, at once withdraw his name from Sebright’s.  Thus he endeavoured to console himself, still, however, resolving that he would have a little serious conversation with the squire that very evening as to Lily’s fortune.

And what was the state of Lily’s mind at the same moment, while she, also, was performing some slight toilet changes preparatory to their simple dinner at the Small House?

“I didn’t behave well to him,” she said to herself; “I never do.  I forget how much he is giving up for me; and then, when anything annoys him, I make it worse instead of comforting him.”  And upon that she made accusation against herself that she did not love him half enough,—­that she did not let him see how thoroughly and perfectly she loved him.  She had an idea of her own, that as a girl should never show any preference for a man till circumstances should have fully entitled him to such manifestation, so also should she make no drawback on her love, but pour it forth for his benefit with all her strength, when such circumstances had come to exist.  But she was ever feeling that she was not acting up to her theory, now that the time for such practice had come.  She would unwittingly assume little reserves, and make small pretences of indifference in spite of her own judgment.  She had done so on this afternoon, and had left him without giving him her hand to press, without looking up into his face with an assurance of love, and therefore she was angry with herself.  “I know I shall teach him to hate me,” she said out loud to Bell.