“No.”
“Are you affronted?”
Not a word. Then again he called to Miss Thrale—
“Why, Queeny—why, she's quite in a rage! What have you done to her?”
I still sulked on, vexed to be teased; but, though with a gaiety that showed he had no suspicion of the cause, he grew more and more urgent, trying every means to make me tell him what was the matter, till at last, much provoked, I said—
“I must be strangely in want of a confidant, indeed, to take you for one!”
“Why, what an insolent speech!” cried he, half serious and half laughing, but casting up his eyes and hands with astonishment. He then let me be quiet some time,—but in a few minutes renewed his inquiries, with added eagerness, begging me to tell him if nobody else.
A likely matter! thought I; nor did I scruple to tell him, when forced to answer, that no one had such little chance of success in such a request.
“Why so?” cried he; “for I am the best person in the world to trust with a secret, as I always forget it.”
He continued working at me till we joined Mrs. Thrale and the attorney-general. And then Miss Thrale, stimulated by him, came to inquire if I had really taken anything amiss of her. “No,” I assured her.