“Here is another man on earth who was simple enough to believe it,” said Ormond, “and to give you credit for it.”
“You!” cried Connal—“That’s too much!—Impossible!”
“But when you said it—when I heard you promise it to Mr. O’Shane—”
“Oh, mercy!—Don’t kill me with laughing!” said he, laughing affectedly: “Oh! that face of yours—there is no standing it. You heard me promise—and the accent on promise. Why, even women, now-a-days, don’t lay such an emphasis on a promise.”
“That, I suppose, depends on who gives it.” said Ormond.
“Rather on who receives it,” said Connal: “but look here, you who understand the doctrine of promises, tell me what a poor conscientious man must do who has two pulling him different ways?”
“A conscientious man cannot have given two diametrically opposite promises.”
“Diametrically!—Thank you for that word—it just saves my lost conscience. Commend me always to an epithet in the last resource for giving one latitude of conscience in these nice cases—I have not given two diametrically opposite—no, I have only given four that cross one another. One to your King Corny; another to my angel, Dora; another to the dear aunt; and a fourth to my dearer self. First promise to King Corny, to settle in the Black Islands; a gratuitous promise, signifying nothing—read Burlamaqui: second promise to Mademoiselle, to go and live with her at Paris; with her—on the face of it absurd! a promise extorted too under fear of my life, of immediate peril of being talked to death—see Vatel on extorted promises—void: third promise to my angel, Dora, to live wherever she pleases; but that’s a lover’s promise, made to be broken—see Love’s Calendar, or, if you prefer the bookmen’s authority, I don’t doubt that, under the head of promises made when a man is not in his right senses, some of those learned fellows in wigs would bring me off sain et sauf: but now for my fourth promise—I am a man of honour—when I make a promise intending to keep it, no man so scrupulous; all promises made to myself come under this head; and I have promised myself to live, and make my wife live, wherever I please, or not to live with her at all. This promise I shall bold sacred. Oblige me with a smile, Mr. Ormond—a smile of approbation.”
“Excuse me, Mr. Connal, that is impossible—I am sincere.”
“So am I, and sincerely you are too romantic. See things as they are, as a man of the world, I beseech you.”