"Mr. Houston," said Mrs. Docimer, before they sat down to dinner together, "I thought it was understood that you and Imogene should not go out alone together again."
"I have taken my place to Innspruck by the diligence this evening," he answered.
"Perhaps it will be better so, though both Mudbury and I will be sorry to lose your company."
"Yes, Mrs. Docimer, I have taken my place. Your sister seemed to think that there would be great danger if I waited till to-morrow morning when I could have got a pleasant lift in a return carriage. I hate travelling at night and I hate diligences. I was quite prepared to post all the way, though it would have ruined me,—only for this accursed diligence."
"I am sorry you should be inconvenienced."
"It does not signify. What a man without a wife may suffer in that way never does signify. It's just fourteen hours. You wouldn't like Docimer to come with me."
"That's nonsense. You needn't go the whole way unless you like. You could sleep at Brunecken."
"Brunecken is only twelve miles, and it might be dangerous."
"Of course you choose to turn everything into ridicule."
"Better that than tears, Mrs. Docimer. What's the good of crying? I can't make myself an elder son. I can't endow Imogene with a hundred thousand pounds. She told me just now that I might earn my bread, but she knows that I can't. It's very sad. But what can be got by being melancholy?"