"You have a right if any one has. I haven't a friend in the world I would trust as I would you. No; she ought not to be more."
"Have you never given her a right to think that she would be more?"
He paused a moment or two before he answered. Much as he wished to trust her, anxious as he was that she should be his real friend he could hardly bring himself to tell her all that had taken place at Rudham Park during the last day or two. Up to that time he never had given Miss Mildmay any right. So, at least, he still assured himself. But now,—it certainly was different now. He desired of all things to be perfectly honest with Lady George,—to be even innocent in all that he said to her; but—just for this once—he was obliged to deviate into a lie. "Never!" he said.
"Of course it is not for me to enquire further."
is very hard to describe the way in which such an intimacy has come about. Guss Mildmay and I have been very much thrown together; but, even had she wished it, we never could have married. We have no means."
"And yet you live like rich people."
"We have no means because we have lived like rich people."
"You have never asked her to marry you?"
"Never."