“What a clever guess I made! Confess I am very ready-witted!”
“You are; and it is to engage those ready wits in my behalf that I am now before you.”
“'At my feet,' sir, is the appropriate expression. I wonder how a gentleman so suited to be the hero of a story could forget the language of the novel.”
“I want you to be serious,” said he, almost sternly.
“And why should that provoke seriousness from me which only costs you levity?”
“Levity!—where is the levity?”
“Is it not this instant that you flung a shilling in the air, and cried out, as you looked on it, 'She has won'? Is it not that you asked Chance to decide for you what most men are led to by their affections, or at least their interests; and if so, is levity not the name for this?”
“True in part, but not in whole; for I felt it was I who had won when 'head' came uppermost.”
“And yet you have lost.”
“How so! You refuse me?”