“You have known it!” he broke from a short silence.
“Yes—never mind how. I could not allude to it. Of course I had to wait till you took the initiative.”
The impulse to think the best of what we are on the point of renouncing is spontaneous. If at the same time this object shall exhibit itself in altogether new, undreamt-of, glorious colours, others besides a sentimentalist might waver, and be in some danger of clutching it a little tenderly ere it is cast off.
“My duty was to tell you the very instant it came to my knowledge,” he said, fascinated in his heart by the display of greatness of mind which he now half divined to be approaching, and wished to avoid.
“Well, I suppose that is a duty between friends?” said she.
“Between friends! Shall we still—always be friends?”
“I think I have said more than once that it won't be my fault if we are not.”
“Because, the greater and happier ambition to which I aspired...” This was what he designed to say, sentimentally propelled, by way of graceful exit, and what was almost printed on a scroll in his head for the tongue to read off fluently. He stopped at 'the greater,' beginning to stumble—to flounder; and fearing that he said less than was due as a compliment to the occasion, he said more.
By no means a quick reader of character, Lady Charlotte nevertheless perceived that the man who spoke in this fashion, after what she had confessed, must be sentimentally, if not actually, playing double.
Thus she came to his assistance: “Are you begging permission to break our engagement?”