"It is very much to me, though. I wish, Lady George, you could bring yourself to tell me the truth." He paused, but she did not speak. "If it were as I fear, you must know how much I am implicated. I would not for the world that you should think I am behaving badly."
"You should not permit her to think so, Captain De Baron."
"She doesn't think so. She can't think so. I am not going to say a word against her. She and I have been dear friends, and there is no one,—hardly any one,—for whom I have a greater regard. But I do protest to you, Lady George, that I have never spoken an untrue word to Augusta Mildmay in my life."
"I have not accused you."
"But has she? Of course it is a kind of thing that a man cannot talk about without great difficulty."
"Is it not a thing that a man should not talk about at all?"
"That is severe, Lady George;—much more severe than I should have expected from your usual good nature. Had you told me that nothing had been said to you, there would have been an end of it. But I cannot bear to think that you should have been told that I had behaved badly, and that I should be unable to vindicate myself."
"Have you not been engaged to marry Miss Mildmay?"
"Never."
"Then why did you allow yourself to become so—so much to her?"