"Now, Nell, no exaggerated expression. It was a fact you told him, according to the best of evidence; and what he could have done to me is just this—he might have given me a deal of trouble, and put off our marriage. I should have had to go back to town, and my time would have been taken up with finding out about those books, and our marriage would have been put off; that's what he could have done."
"Is that all?" cried Elinor, "was that all?"
"All!" he said, with that loud laugh again; "you don't mind a bit how you hurt a fellow's pride, and his affections, and all that. Do you mean to say, you hard-hearted little coquette, that you wouldn't mind? I don't believe you would mind! Here am I counting the hours, and you, you little cold puss, you aggravating little——"
"Oh, Phil, don't talk such nonsense. If we were to be separated, for a week or a month, what could that matter, in comparison with saying what wasn't——"
"Hush," he said, putting his hand to her mouth. "It's not nice of you to take it so easily, Nell. I'd tell as many what-d'ye-call-'ems as you like, rather than put it off an hour. Why, feeling apart (and I don't think you've any feeling, you little piece of ice), think how inconvenient it would have been; the people all arriving; the breakfast all ready; the Rector with his surplice on; and no wedding! Fancy the Jew with all her fallals, on the old lady's hands, and your cousin John——"
"I have told you already, Phil, my cousin John will not be there."
"So much the better," he said, with a laugh, "I don't want him to be there—shows his sense, when his nose is put out of joint, to keep out of the way."
"I wish you would understand," she said, with a little vexation, "that John is not put out of joint, as you say in that odious way. He has never been anything more to me, nor I to him, than we are now—like brother and sister."
"The more fool he," said Compton, "to have the chance of a nice girl like you, Nell, and not to go in for it. But I don't believe a bit in the brother and sister dodge."
"We will be just the same all our lives," cried Elinor.