"I felt that poor man's death."
"Yes;—and you felt the other nuisance too."
"I remember that you told me that you would cling on to my legs."
"Eleanor said so;—and when it was explained to me, what clinging on to your legs meant, I remember saying that I wished to be understood as being one to help. I love your sister so well that anything which would break her heart would make me unhappy."
"You did not care for my own welfare in the matter?"
"What ought I say, Lord Rufford, in answer to that? Of course I did care. But I knew that it was impossible that you should really set your affections on such a person as Miss Trefoil. I told Eleanor that it would come to nothing. I was sure of it."
"Why should it have come to nothing,—as you call it?"
"Because you are a gentleman and because she—is not a lady. I don't know that we women can quite understand how it is that you men amuse yourselves with such persons."
"I didn't amuse myself."
"I never thought you did very much. There was something I suppose in her riding, something in her audacity, something perhaps in her vivacity;—but through it all I did not think that you were enjoying yourself. You may be sure of this, Lord Rufford, that when a woman is not specially liked by any other woman, she ought not to be specially liked by any man. I have never heard that Miss Trefoil had a female friend."