“Since you seem disposed to reciprocate my confidence you will not take offence if I ask you a question or two!”
“Certainly not, sir; your own frankness shall be a rule for my government.”
“Have you ever let Miss Mordaunt know that such are your wishes?”
“I have, sir; and that in the plainest terms—such as cannot well be misunderstood.”
“What! last night?—On that infernal ice!—While she thought her life was in your hands!”
“Nothing was said on the subject, last night, for we had other thoughts to occupy our minds.”
“It would have been a most ungenerous thing to take advantage of a lady's fears—”
“Major Bulstrode!—I cannot submit—”
“Hush, my dear Corny,” interrupted the other, holding out a hand in a most quiet and friendly manner; “there must be no misunderstanding between you and me. Men are never greater simpletons, than when they let the secret consciousness of their love of life push them into swaggering about their honour; when their honour has, in fact, nothing to do with the matter in hand. I shall not quarrel with you; and must beg you, in advance, to receive my apologies for any little indecorum into which I may be betrayed by surprise; as for great pieces of indecorum, I shall endeavour to avoid them.”
“Enough has been said, Mr. Bulstrode; I am no wrangler, to quarrel with a shadow; and, I trust, not in the least, that most contemptible of all human beings, a social bully, to be on all occasions menacing the sword or the pistol. Such men usually do nothing, when matters come to a crisis. Even when they fight, they fight bunglingly, and innocently.”