“By not talking to him, ma’am, more than to any one else.”
“And pray, Mr. Turbulent, solve me, then, this difficulty; what choice has a poor female with whom she may converse? Must she not, in company as in dancing, take up with those who choose to take up with her?”
He was staggered by this question, and while he wavered how to answer it, I pursued my little advantage—
“No man, Mr. Turbulent, has any cause to be flattered that a woman talks with him, while it is only in reply; for though he may come, go, address or neglect, and do as he will,—she, let her think and wish what she may, must only follow as he leads.”
He protested, with great warmth, he never heard any thing so proudly said in Ins life. But I would not retract.
“And now, ma’am,” he continued, “how wondrous intimate you are grown! After such averseness to a meeting—such struggles to avoid him; what am I to think of the sincerity of that pretended reluctance?”
“You must think the truth,” said I, “that it was not the colonel, but the equerry, I wished to avoid; that it was not the individual, but the official necessity of receiving company, that I wished to escape.”