He longed to inquire who were the all of whom she spoke, but he could not do it without an egotism which would be distasteful to him. "I can hardly tell;—but I don't think I shall be asked to join them."
"You would wish it?"
"Yes;—talking to you I do not see why I should hesitate to say so."
"Talking to me, why should you hesitate to say anything about yourself that is true? I can hold my tongue. I do not gossip about my friends. Whose doing is it?"
"I do not know that it is any man's doing."
"But it must be. Everybody said that you were to be one of them if you could get the other people out. Is it Mr. Bonteen?"
"Likely enough. Not that I know anything of the kind; but as I hate him from the bottom of my heart, it is natural to suppose that he has the same feeling in regard to me."
"I agree with you there."
"But I don't know that it comes from any feeling of that kind."
"What does it come from?"