"You cannot: of course not: any one could see that at a glance. You are all the sweeter to me for not being tame. Marriage cures a multitude of indispositions."
"Oh! Mrs. Mountstuart, will you listen to me?"
"Presently. Don't threaten me with confidences. Eloquence is a terrible thing in woman. I suspect, my dear, that we both know as much as could be spoken."
"You hardly suspect the truth, I fear."
"Let me tell you one thing about jealous men—when they are not blackamoors married to disobedient daughters. I speak of our civil creature of the drawing-rooms: and lovers, mind, not husbands: two distinct species, married or not:—they're rarely given to jealousy unless they are flighty themselves. The jealousy fixes them. They have only to imagine that we are for some fun likewise and they grow as deferential as my footman, as harmless as the sportsman whose gun has burst. Ah! my fair Middleton, am I pretending to teach you? You have read him his lesson, and my table suffered for it last night, but I bear no rancour."
"You bewilder me, Mrs. Mountstuart."
"Not if I tell you that you have driven the poor man to try whether it would be possible for him to give you up."
"I have?"
"Well, and you are successful."
"I am?"