“Upon your goodness of heart!”
“‘Tis all hardness here!”
“I will cast myself at your feet,—I will kneel to you!” And he was preparing his immense person for prostration, when Goter[244] opened the door. Such an interruption to his heroics made me laugh heartily; nor could he help joining himself; though the moment she was gone he renewed his importunity with unabated earnestness.
“I remember,” he cried, “it was upon the Terrace you first shewed me this disdain; and there, too, you have shown it me repeatedly since, with public superciliousness.... You well know you have treated me ill,—you know and have acknowledged it!”
“And when?” cried I, amazed and provoked; “when did I do what could never be done?”
“At Kew, ma’am, you were full of concern—full of remorse for the treatment you had given me!—and you owned it!”
“Good heaven, Mr. Turbulent, what can induce you to say this?”
“Is it not true?”
“Not a word of it! You know it is not!”
“Indeed,” cried he, “I really and truly thought so—hoped so;—I believed you looked as if you felt your own ill-usage, and it gave to me a delight inexpressible!”