"I quite agree with you there, madam," said the cook.
"Then all I have to do is, by deeds, to convince you that I am sincere in my feelings towards you. As I have before said, I am in the power of another, and therefore is it that, contrary to my nature, I may seem to do cruel things at which my heart revolts."
"I cannot conceive anything so distressing," said the cook, "except being the unfortunate victim as I am of such a train of circumstances."
"That is what I am coming to."
"Are you? I wish you were."
There was a tone of irony about the enforced cook which Mrs. Lovett did not at all like; but she had an object to gain, and that was to fully persuade him that the shortest way to his freedom would be to remain profoundly quiet for a day or two, and then she would be able to make her own arrangements and be off without troubling either him or Todd with any news of her departure or her whereabouts.
"You still doubt me," she said. "But listen, and I think you will soon be of opinion that although I have wronged you as yet, I can do something to repair that wrong."
"I am all attention, madam."
"Then, in the first place, you are quite tired of eating pies, and must have some other kind of food."
"You never said a truer thing in all your life, madam."