How it opens
You were Elinor Vane, and your family had come down in the world so gently that nobody had noticed the moment of landing.
The Bayswater house had three bedrooms, one servant, and the remains of a carriage, and your mother kept its address like a dowry.
Edward GreyThe firm gives me the foreign correspondence in the spring, Mrs. Vane; it is the beginning of the partners' staircase.
You are climbing for two now, Edward; I never saw a man carry a ladder so steadily.
Edward GreySteadiness is all I have to offer, Elinor; I have never once pretended it was charm.
Choose
Praise him to your mother, and let the Sunday drama end as it has ended for a year.
Praise him to himself, because a man who has climbed for a year deserves the summit's view.
Ask him whether he would have climbed so fast for any other Sunday dinner in England.