“Then your feelings are less superfine than I took them to be; you must be a coarse, callous character, to bear such a thwack without staggering under it.”
“Staggering under it? What the deuce is there to stagger under in the circumstance of a Belgian schoolmistress marrying a French schoolmaster? The progeny will doubtless be a strange hybrid race; but that’s their look-out—not mine.”
“He indulges in scurrilous jests, and the bride was his affianced one!”
“Who said so?”
“Brown.”
“I’ll tell you what, Hunsden—Brown is an old gossip.”
“He is; but in the meantime, if his gossip be founded on less than fact—if you took no particular interest in Miss Zoraïde—why, O youthful pedagogue! did you leave your place in consequence of her becoming Madame Pelet?”
“Because—” I felt my face grow a little hot; “because—in short, Mr. Hunsden, I decline answering any more questions,” and I plunged my hands deep in my breeches pocket.
Hunsden triumphed: his eyes—his laugh announced victory.
“What the deuce are you laughing at, Mr. Hunsden?”