"You had no right to say what you did just now, because you know I am engaged to Mr Jefferson----"
"Lucky man?" sighed Jim.
"Are you still regarding me as a person just to be joked with?" demanded Dora, with something like a sob in her voice.
"No," said Jim, earnestly, "as a girl to be loved for ever and ever!"
Jim's astonishing comprehensiveness struck Dora dumb for a moment. What could a girl do with a man like this!
Dora considered what she could say that would make a good rebuke. And meanwhile she looked (as Jim declared to himself) bewilderingly lovely.
"What you said, considering the circumstances," she continued at length, "was dishonourable and ungentlemanly."
"I plead guilty on both counts," said Jim.
"And so," Dora went on, "I shall not speak to you again--ever."
"I think," replied Jim, "that you are taking far too harsh a view of the case. If you will walk round the crescent just once with me, I will try to put myself right in your eyes."