"You've never married; you can, therefore, talk as you please."
"My dear Miss Fitzgerald, if I'd ever married, I should probably not talk at all."
"You don't regard our affair as serious?"
"Not on Mr. Stanley's side?"
"And on mine?"
"That we shall see later on; but my young friend is in his salad days, and he's not responsible, but he is almost too honest."
"I suppose you'll say I tempted him."
"N-o—but you let him fall."
"However, you were at hand to rescue him. I wonder you should have wasted your valuable time in going through the formality of consulting me over so trivial an affair."
"But it's not trivial. I thought it was till this morning, now I've changed my mind. It's very serious. I've a right to save my friend from making a fool of himself, when he only is the real sufferer; but it's a very different question when the rights of another person are involved, especially when that person is a woman."