"Because you understand well enough, only you won't admit it."
"Do you know, Mr. Gartney, you are very rude?" said the Creole quietly.
"Pshaw!" cried Eustace angrily, "it's no use our fencing with buttons on the foils. I've come here for a certain purpose, and you know what it is."
"I'm sure I don't," said Mrs. Veilsturm doggedly.
"None so blind as those who won't see."
"Pithy," retorted Cleopatra sneeringly, "very pithy, but irrelevant."
"Not at all, as I will soon show you. Look here, Mrs. Veilsturm, I'm going to be plain, brutally plain."
"To do you justice you generally are."
"It is necessary in some cases, especially in this one," said Gartney quietly, "but I'm not here to discuss my personal character, but to save my cousin."
"From me, I presume."