"I do not think that you can mean that."
"I will never receive that woman, nor will I cross the sill of her door. Why should I?"
"Should she become my wife,—that I would have thought might have been the reason why."
"Surely, Phineas, no man ever understood a woman so ill as you do."
"Because I would fain hope that I need not quarrel with my oldest friend?"
"Yes, sir; because you think you can do this without quarrelling. How should I speak to her of you; how listen to what she would tell me? Phineas, you have killed me at last." Why could he not tell her that it was she who had done the wrong when she gave her hand to Robert Kennedy? But he could not tell her, and he was dumb. "And so it's settled!"
"No; not settled."
"Psha! I hate your mock modesty! It is settled. You have become far too cautious to risk fortune in such an adventure. Practice has taught you to be perfect. It was to tell me this that you came down here."
"Partly so."
"It would have been more generous of you, sir, to have remained away."