“Is he, or ain't he, a gentleman?”
Dahlia seemed torn by a new anguish.
“I see,” said Anthony. “He goes and persuades you he is, and you've been and found out he's nothin' o' the sort—eh? That'd be a way of accounting for your queerness, more or less. Was it that fellow that Wicklow gal saw ye with?”
Dahlia signified vehemently, “No.”
“Then, I've guessed right; he turns out not to be a gentleman—eh, Dahly? Go on noddin', if ye like. Never mind the shop people; we're well-conducted, and that's all they care for. I say, Dahly, he ain't a gentleman? You speak out or nod your head. You thought you'd caught a gentleman and 'taint the case. Gentlemen ain't caught so easy. They all of 'em goes to school, and that makes 'em knowin'. Come; he ain't a gentleman?”
Dahlia's voice issued, from a terrible inward conflict, like a voice of the tombs. “No,” she said.
“Then, will you show him to me? Let me have a look at him.”
Pushed from misery to misery, she struggled within herself again, and again in the same hollow manner said, “Yes.”
“You will?”
“Yes.”