He. Oh, she wouldn’t have understood. Like every other girl, ’twas the personal application that she was touched by. You see she didn’t know the other girls, and she did know you; and she seems to think your no more binding than any other person’s yes. Perhaps she knows that a woman’s negative—
She. Really, Arthur, that’s so hackneyed that if you haven’t the gallantry not to say it you ought to be ashamed to repeat anything so stale.
He. Perhaps you are right; I have known you to be on very rare occasions. However, Annie insisted that I should come, and, as she said, “assure myself of your sentiments and of my own.” Did you ever hear anything more absurd? As if I didn’t know, all the time, that you were dying for me; and as if I—despite my mad and overpowering passion for your lovely self, Miss Peltonville—couldn’t tell as well in New York as in Cuba whether I wanted to marry her or not.
She. If you were no better informed of your own sentiments than of mine, I don’t wonder she doubted your conclusions.
He. Oh, she didn’t in the least.
She. At least, Annie may set her mind quite at rest, so far as I am concerned.
He. Thank you so much. It is such a relief to have things settled.
She. What would you have done if I had accepted you?
He. Oh, I was confident of my ability of putting the question so that you wouldn’t.