"Yes, most flagitiously."
"How do you mean? Shrapnell wrote me word that he was very attentive, and used to join her in her walks; and afterwards he said that he had been mistaken, and discovered that he was awfully in love with the young lady at Malory."
"Don't believe a word of it. I wonder at Captain Shrapnell circulating such insanity. He must know how it really was, and is. I look upon it as perfectly wicked, the way that Captain Shrapnell talks. You're not to mention it, of course, to anyone. It would be scandalous of you, Thomas Sedley, to think of breathing a word to mortal—mind that; but I'm certain you wouldn't."
"What a beast Cleve Verney has turned out!" exclaimed Tom Sedley. "Do you think she still cares for him?"
"Why, of course she does. If he had been paying his addresses to me, and that I had grown by his perseverance and devotion to like him, do you think, Thomas Sedley, that although I might give him up in consequence of his misconduct, that I could ever cease to feel the same kind of feeling about him?" And as she put this incongruous case, she held Tom Sedley's arm firmly, showing her bony wrist above her glove; and with her gaunt brown face and saucer eyes turned full upon him, rather fiercely, Tom felt an inward convulsion at the picture of Cleve's adorations at this shrine, and the melting of the nymph, which by a miracle he repressed.
"But you may have more constancy than Agnes," he suggested.
"Don't talk like a fool, Thomas Sedley. Every nice girl is the same."
"May I talk to Cleve about it?"
"On no account. No nice girl could marry him now, and an apology would be simply ridiculous. I have not spoken to him on the subject, and though I had intended cutting him, my friend Mrs. Splayfoot was so clear that I should meet him just as usual, that I do control the expression of my feelings, and endeavour to talk to him indifferently, though I should like uncommonly to tell him how odious I shall always think him."
"Yes, I remember," said Tom, who had been pondering. "Cleve did tell me, that time—it's more than a year ago now—it was a year in autumn—that he admired Agnes, and used to walk with you on the green every day; he did certainly. I must do him that justice. But suppose Agnes did not show that she liked him, he might not have seen any harm."