“It's very hard not to believe you sincere when you speak in this way,” said she, in a low voice.
“Don't try,” said he, in the same low tone.
“You promise me, then, that nothing shall come of this?”
“I do,” said he, seriously.
“And that you will make any amends the Commodore's friend may suggest? Come, come,” said she, laughing, “I never meant that you were to marry the young lady.”
“I really don't know how far you were going to put my devotion to the test.”
The pleasantness with which he spoke this so amused her that she broke again into laughter, and laughed heartily too. “Confess,” said she at last,—“confess it's the only scrape you did not see your way out of!”
“I am ready to confess it's the only occasion in my life in which I had to place my honor in the hands of a lady.”
“Well, let us see if a lady cannot be as adroit as a gentleman in such an affair; and now, as you are in my hands, Mr. Maitland,—completely in my hands,—I am peremptory, and my first orders are that you keep close arrest. Raikes will see that you are duly fed, and that you have your letters and the newspapers; but mind, on any account, no visitors without my express leave: do you hear me, sir?”
“I do; and all I would say is this, that if the tables should ever turn, and it would be my place to impose conditions, take my word for it, I 'll be just as absolute. Do you hear me, madam?”