"Where?" said she.
"During our annual two months in London. I drive a barouche there, and venture to prophesy that my equipage will create the greatest excitement of any in London. I see old Horace De Craye gazing!"
She sighed. She could not drag him to the word, or a hint of it necessary to her subject.
But there it was; she saw it. She had nearly let it go, and blushed at being obliged to name it.
"Jealousy, do you mean. Willoughby? the people in London would be jealous?—Colonel De Craye? How strange! That is a sentiment I cannot understand."
Sir Willoughby gesticulated the "Of course not" of an established assurance to the contrary.
"Indeed, Willoughby, I do not."
"Certainly not."
He was now in her trap. And he was imagining himself to be anatomizing her feminine nature.
"Can I give you a proof, Willoughby? I am so utterly incapable of it that—listen to me—were you to come to me to tell me, as you might, how much better suited to you Miss Dale has appeared than I am—and I fear I am not; it should be spoken plainly; unsuited altogether, perhaps—I would, I beseech you to believe—you must believe me—give you . . . give you your freedom instantly; most truly; and engage to speak of you as I should think of you. Willoughby, you would have no one to praise you in public and in private as I should, for you would be to me the most honest, truthful, chivalrous gentleman alive. And in that case I would undertake to declare that she would not admire you more than I; Miss Dale would not; she would not admire you more than I; not even Miss Dale."