"
"Oh dear, yes. If you mean about telling, I never tell anything."
"That's what I do mean. You remember that man at your place?"
"What man? Poor Caneback?"
"Oh dear no! I wish they could change places because then he could
give me no more trouble."
"That's wishing him to be dead, whoever he is."
"Yes. Why should he persecute me? I mean that man we were staying
with at Bragton."
"Mr. Morton?"
"Of course I do. Don't you remember your asking me about him, and
my telling you that I was not engaged to him?"
"I remember that"
"Mamma and this horrid old Duchess here want me to marry him.
They've got an idea that he is going to be ambassador at Pekin or
something very grand, and they're at me day and night"
"You needn't take him unless you like him."
"They do make me so miserable!" And then she leaned heavily upon
his arm. He was a man who could not stand such pressure as this
without returning it. Though he were on the precipice, and though
he must go over, still he could not stand it. "You remember that
night after the ball?"
"Indeed I do."
"And you too had asked me whether I cared for that horrid man."
"I didn't see anything horrid. You had been staying at his house
and people had told me. What was I to think?"
"You ought to have known what to think. There; let me go,"--for now
he had got his arm round her waist.
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