"I half believe you're right. Confound it! I know you're right, and yet—how am I to get out of it with honour?"
"Don't have any false sentimentality about that, my boy. Believe me, she understands the situation much better than you do. So far you have been chums; if you stop there, she is too much a woman of the world to lay it up against you. You've given her much pleasure during the past season and she appreciates it; but she's quite enough of a philosopher to accept cheerfully the half-loaf."
"But I can't be just a friend."
"Not now, perhaps, but you can a few months later, when other things have supervened."
"If I see her again—it's all over."
"Don't see her then."
"That is just the point. She's going to stay with an aunt in Sussex."
"Yes, Mrs. Roberts, and I am invited to go down to the house-party to-morrow, and have accepted, and shall come back engaged."
"Send your excuses, by all means, write to-day."