“Well, if I did I did, that’s all, but I don’t remember,” said Harry, “and I’m sure you make a mistake.”
“A mistake—what do you mean?” asked Charles.
“I mean marriage or no marriage, I never meant to say as you suppose—I know nothing about it, whatever I may think,” said Harry, sturdily.
“You know everything that I know, I’ve told you everything,” answered Charles Fairfield.
“And what o’ that? How can you or me tell whether it makes a marriage or not, and I won’t be quoted by you or any one else, as having made such a mouth of myself as to lay down the law in a case that might puzzle a judge,” said Harry, darkening.
“You believe the facts I’ve told you, I fancy,” said Charles sternly.
“You meant truth, I’m sure o’ that, and beyond that I believe nothing but what I have said myself, and more I won’t say for the king,” said Harry, putting his hands in his pockets, and looking sulkily at Charles, with his mouth a little open.
Charles looked awfully angry.
“You know very well, Harry, you have fifty times told me there was nothing in it, and you have even said that the person herself thinks so too,” he said at last, restraining himself.
“That I never said, by ——,” said Harry, coolly, who was now standing with his back against the window-shutters, and his hands in his pockets. As he so spoke he crossed one sinewy leg over the other, and continued to direct from the corner of his eye a sullen gaze upon his brother.