"Perhaps I am."
"If I did not go with you, some of the other fellows would. John, or George—"
"Good gracious, Frank! Fancy either of the Mr de Courcys walking home with me!"
She had forgotten herself, and the strict propriety on which she had resolved, in the impossibility of forgoing her little joke against the de Courcy grandeur; she had forgotten herself, and had called him Frank in her old, former, eager, free tone of voice; and then, remembering she had done so, she drew herself up, bit her lips, and determined to be doubly on her guard in the future.
"Well, it shall be either one of them or I," said Frank: "perhaps you would prefer my cousin George to me?"
"I should prefer Janet to either, seeing that with her I should not suffer the extreme nuisance of knowing that I was a bore."
"A bore! Mary, to me?"
"Yes, Mr Gresham, a bore to you. Having to walk home through the mud with village young ladies is boring. All gentlemen feel it to be so."
"There is no mud; if there were you would not be allowed to walk at all."
"Oh! village young ladies never care for such things, though fashionable gentlemen do."