S. I am no prude, Sir.
H. Yet you might be taken for one. So your mother said, “It was hard if you might not indulge in a little levity.” She has strange notions of levity. But levity, my dear, is quite out of character in you. Your ordinary walk is as if you were performing some religious ceremony: you come up to my table of a morning, when you merely bring in the tea-things, as if you were advancing to the altar. You move in minuet-time: you measure every step, as if you were afraid of offending in the smallest things. I never hear your approach on the stairs, but by a sort of hushed silence. When you enter the room, the Graces wait on you, and Love waves round your person in gentle undulations, breathing balm into the soul! By Heaven, you are an angel! You look like one at this instant! Do I not adore you—and have I merited this return?
S. I have repeatedly answered that question. You sit and fancy things out of your own head, and then lay them to my charge. There is not a word of truth in your suspicions.
H. Did I not overhear the conversation down-stairs last night, to which you were a party? Shall I repeat it?
S. I had rather not hear it!
H. Or what am I to think of this story of the footman?
S. It is false, Sir, I never did anything of the sort.
H. Nay, when I told your mother I wished she wouldn’t * * * * * * * * * (as I heard she did) she said “Oh, there’s nothing in that, for Sarah very often * * * * * *,” and your doing so before company, is only a trifling addition to the sport.
S. I’ll call my mother, Sir, and she shall contradict you.
H. Then she’ll contradict herself. But did not you boast you were “very persevering in your resistance to gay young men,” and had been “several times obliged to ring the bell?” Did you always ring it? Or did you get into these dilemmas that made it necessary, merely by the demureness of your looks and ways? Or had nothing else passed? Or have you two characters, one that you palm off upon me, and another, your natural one, that you resume when you get out of the room, like an actress who throws aside her artificial part behind the scenes? Did you not, when I was courting you on the staircase the first night Mr. C—— came, beg me to desist, for if the new lodger heard us, he’d take you for a light character? Was that all? Were you only afraid of being TAKEN for a light character? Oh! Sarah!