"What makes you think that?"
"You are devoted to her."
"Much more to you, Miss Boncassen."
"That is nonsense, Lord Silverbridge."
"Not at all."
"It is also—untrue."
"Surely I must be the best judge of that myself."
"Not a doubt; a judge not only whether it be true, but if true whether expedient,—or even possible. What did I say to you when we first began to know each other?"
"What did you say?"
"That I liked knowing you;—that was frank enough;—that I liked knowing you because I knew that there would be no tomfoolery of love-making." Then she paused; but he did not quite know how to go on with the conversation at once, and she continued her speech. "When you condescend to tell me that you are devoted to me, as though that were the kind of thing that I expect to have said when I take a walk with a young man in a wood, is not that the tomfoolery of love-making?" She stopped and looked at him, so that he was obliged to answer.