"I'm sure I never mean to be cruel to you, Lucy."
"I don't think you do. I hardly believe that you ever mean anything,—except just to get along and live."
"A fellow must live, you know," said George.
In ordinary society George Hotspur could be bright, and he was proud of being bright. With this woman he was always subdued, always made to play second fiddle, always talked like a boy; and he knew it. He had loved her once, if he was capable of loving anything; but her mastery over him wearied him, even though he was, after a fashion, proud of her cleverness, and he wished that she were,—well, dead, if the reader choose that mode of expressing what probably were George's wishes. But he had never told himself that he desired her death. He could build pleasant castles in the air as to the murder of Captain Stubber, but his thoughts did not travel that way in reference to Mrs. Morton.
"She is not pretty, then,—this rich bride of yours?"
"Not particularly; she's well enough, you know."
"And well enough is good enough for you;—is it? Do you love her, George?"
The woman's voice was very low and plaintive as she asked the question. Though from moment to moment she could use her little skill in pricking him with her satire, still she loved him; and she would vary her tone, and as at one minute she would make him uneasy by her raillery, so at the next she would quell him by her tenderness. She looked into his face for a reply, when he hesitated. "Tell me that you do not love her," she said, passionately.
"Not particularly," replied George.
"And yet you would marry her?"