"Perish the thought, and perish the caitiff base who would harbor it. Princess, you are sharper than I. Do you think I would be fool enough to try any tricks on you, when I should be found out at once?"
"People generally find you out at once, but that doesn't seem to stop you. How can I tell whether I can trust you? I don't believe you know yourself when you are serious—if you ever are."
"There is one subject on which I am serious—deeply so, and always. Clarice, when I die, if you will see that the autopsy is properly performed, you will find your initials, as the poet says, neatly engraven on my blighted heart."
"Robert, sometimes I fear you have incipient softening of the brain."
"And if I have, is not that a reason why I should be watched and guarded tenderly—why loving arms should enfold my tottering frame, and sweet smiles cheer my declining path, and a strong firm brain like yours support my failing intellect? Clarice, be gentle with me. I am an orphan like yourself; soon, if you read the future aright, to be laid beneath the cold clods of the valley. When I am sleeping under the daisies in the lonely churchyard, you will say to yourself, He was my friend, my more than brother: he loved me with a loyal and self-oblivious devotion. And then, in those sad hours of vain remembrance, every unkind word that you have spoken, all the coldness and cruelty which have pierced my patient breast, will return to torture yours. Be warned in time, Clarice, and make it easy for me while you have the chance."
"Robert, if you have a talent, it is for shirking a subject you are afraid of. When you go off like this, I know you are hiding something from me. What is it this time?"
I saw things were getting serious. She was bound to get it out of me, and I might as well give in. "Princess, I will confess, and throw myself on your mercy. Strike, but hear me. It won't pay you to be cross now, for you've got to be with me till you conclude to take Hartman up; we can't be quarrelling all the time, you know. He asked me about you this morning; Jane had spoken of you at breakfast. I put him off with general remarks about your being down south last winter, and the like of that; then suddenly my brain slipped—it is softening, you see—and I said you had come back when I was in the woods with him. That started him, and he recalled your notion of going up there."
"You are sure you didn't mention it yourself? What did he say?"
"Merely that he wished I had let you and Jane come. He likes Jane. Upon my honor now, he had no suspicion of anything."
"You goose, how often have I told you there was nothing to suspect? But men are so coarse. Well, is that all? What else are you trying to conceal?"