Suddenly lifting her head, she said to Monteagle in a brisk tone, ‘You tell me one very big lie!’
‘No, upon my honor.’
After a moment’s silence, she said, ‘Where you have been last night?’
‘I can’t tell you that, Maria.’
‘Ah! I find you out. You love one pretty lady: you see her last night, and you say I not tell you where I go last night.’
‘No, Maria, I have answered one of your questions; but cannot answer the other.’
Maria looked down, and breathed a deep sigh.
Monteagle’s pride was a little touched. He said, ‘I do not know that I shall ever marry, Maria. But if I happened to fall in with a congenial spirit—a virtuous, chaste, respectable girl, I don’t know what might happen.’
Maria threw back her head, shook her raven tresses fiercely, and her nostrils dilated as she answered—‘What thing is men! they think of nobody but himself. Woman got soul for somebody besides herself,’ and she struck her breast forcibly, so much so that Monteagle heard a dagger rattle in its scabbard.
‘Oh, yes, Maria, I have feeling for others,’ returned Monteagle. ‘I have feeling for you, and although I may not wish to marry you—’