"One moment, if you don't mind."
"Certainly, certainly. There is no hurry."
"You will take no more wine?"
"No more wine. I take my wine at dinner, as you saw."
"I want to ask you one special question,—about Lady Ongar."
"I will say anything in her favour that you please. I am always ready to say anything in the favour of any lady, and, if needs be, to swear it. But anything against any lady nobody ever heard me say."
Harry was sharp enough to perceive that any assertion made under such a stipulation was worse than nothing. It was as when a man, in denying the truth of a statement, does so with an assurance that on that subject he should consider himself justified in telling any number of lies. "I did not write the book,—but you have no right to ask the question; and I should say that I had not, even if I had." Pateroff was speaking of Lady Ongar in this way, and Harry hated him for doing so.
"I don't want you to say any good of her," said he, "or any evil."
"I certainly shall say no evil of her."
"But I think you know that she has been most cruelly treated."