"I don't want to assure you of anything."
"So I thought. That is why I say you might do better."
"I might do worse, too."
"Perhaps. But still I cannot forget there was Wolverhampton last year. A title is not to be despised; and he was devoted to you, and would, I think, have made a good husband."
"I daresay. He was fool enough for anything. And I liked him, rather; but there was something in him—wasn't there, now, Hermia?—something positively enraging at times."
"I suppose, then, your fancy for young Ronayne arises from the fact that there is nothing in him," says Hermia, maliciously: "that's his charm, is it?"
Mrs. Bohun laughs.
"I don't suppose there is very much in him," she says: "that in itself is such a relief. Wolverhampton was so overpowering about those hydraulics. Ulic isn't a savant, certainly, and I don't think he will ever set the Liffey afire, but he is 'pleasant too to think on.' Now, mind you, I don't believe I care a pin about Ulic Ronayne,—he is younger than I am, for one thing,—but still I don't care to hear him abused."
"I am not abusing him," says Hermia. "It was you said he was no savant, and would be unlikely to set the Liffey afire."
"For which we should be devoutly grateful," says Olga, frivolously. "Consider, if he could, what the consequences would be, both to life and property. Poor young man! I really think Government ought to give him a pension because he can't."