"That's odd, considering you've half broken her heart," urged Tom.
"I broken her heart?" repeated Cleve. "Now, really, Sedley, do pray think what you're saying."
"I say I think you've broken her heart, and her sister thinks so too; and it's an awful shame," insisted Tom, very grimly.
"I really do think the people want to set me mad," said Cleve, testily. "If anyone says that I have ever done anything that could have made any of that family, who are in their senses, fancy that I was in love with Miss Agnes Etherage, and that I wished her to suppose so, it is simply an untruth. I never did, and I don't intend; and I can't see, for the life of me, Tom Sedley, what business it is of yours. But thus much I do say, upon my honour, it is a lie. Miss Charity Etherage, an old maid, with no more sense than a snipe, living in that barbarous desert, where if a man appears at all, during eight months out of the twelve, he's a prodigy, and if he walks up the street with a Cardyllian lady, he's pronounced to be over head and ears in love, and of course meditating marriage—I say she's not the most reliable critic in the world in an affair of that sort; and all I say is, that I've given no grounds for any such idea, and I mean it, upon my honour; and I've seldom been so astonished in my life before."
There was an air of frank and indignant repudiation in Cleve's manner and countenance, which more even than his words convinced Tom Sedley, who certainly was aware how little the Cardyllian people knew of the world, and what an eminently simple maiden in all such matters the homely Miss Charity was. So Tom extended his hand and said—
"Well, Cleve, I'm so glad, and I beg your pardon, and I know you say truth, and pray shake hands; but though you are not to blame—I'm now quite sure you're not—the poor girl is very unhappy, and her sister very angry."
"I can't help that. How on earth can I help it? I'm very sorry, though I'm not sure that I ought to care a farthing about other people's nonsense, and huffs, and romances. I could tell you things about myself, lots of things you'd hardly believe—real dreadful annoyances. I tell you Tom, I hate the life I'm leading. You only see the upper surface, and hardly that. I'm worried to death, and only that I owe so much money, and can't get away, I can tell you—I don't care two pins whether you believe it or not—I should have been feeding sheep in Australia a year ago."
"Better where you are, Cleve."
"How the devil do you know? Don't be offended with me, Tom, only make allowances, and if I sometimes talk a bit like a Bedlamite don't repeat my ravings; that's all. Look at that windmill; isn't it pretty?"