“I am surprised.”
“Why so?”
“I had heard it said there was a dead romance in his life never to be resurrected.”
“No, it was the romance of the portrait ideal. Had he never met your sister, the reality of the ideal, I could have won him, though perhaps never the love I would have wanted, still the love that I would have been satisfied with.”
“You are very particular.”
“Would that I had been more so in the past.”
“Love is a lottery.”
“Yes, I grant that; but what do you think of your brother-in-law in prospective, though, of course, you will never know him as such, having been hanged by his order.”
“Nonsense.”
“Oh, no, sound sense.”