“Allow me, miss, to ask if interest in me, in Mr. Carington, or in the unknown is at the thriving root of your evident curiosity?”
“In you, Marc. Aurelius.”
“That is pretty clever, miss. Permit me to reply, in the language of my namesake, ‘Mere curiosity is like a road which leads nowhere: what profits it to go that way? Also as to things it may be well, or as to those in whom we have an interest, but not as to the horde of men.’ Now, as you have expressed no interest in it as a thing unknown, and none as to Mr. Carington, or mankind, and as it concerns him chiefly, I shall forever after hold my peace. You lost your chance.”
“Give me another.”
“Not I.”
“But I made a bet with Aunt Anne.”
“Then pay it. Have you exhausted your feminine arts?”
“All—I give up; but I mean to know. I shall ask Mr. Carington.”
“I wouldn’t do that, my dear child.”
“Oh, Pardy! How you rose to that fly! Imagine it!”