THE SENSE OF THE PAST
a case of that felt security after the fact already noted by him, as we have seen, and scarce open, of a truth, to more vivid illustration. The security was felt just as much by herself: this made the harmony full, this acted to keep it still quite possible for him that the comparatively superficial commerce, the inquiry and explanation that might have figured as preliminary, should follow at a lower level what had just taken place, and do so without either casting absurdity back on the passage or their themselves incurring ridicule.
"I reached London but last night—so you see I haven't lost much time. Perhaps I should first have asked your mother's leave," Ralph said; but she had already at the word taken him up.
"Oh she would certainly have given it!" And he at once saw from the tone of this that what she referred to as so licensed was the plunge into intimacy just enacted. It put him a trifle out of tune that the most he himself had meant was that he might have inquired of his cousin's convenience as to presenting himself; and to feel his deference to that propriety—or to almost any, it might seem—so swept away reminded him afresh that he couldn't, by every appearance, be too bold, since he plainly created in others, straight off and by his presence, the liveliest dispositions and allowances. If it was true that Mrs. Midmore, as he had figured her, would have smiled upon his silent rush at her daughter from
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