"
"I know what I am about."
"So much the worse--but I doubt it. For your mother's sake, if for
no other, you should scorn to behave to a woman as you are doing
now."
"What do you please to imagine I am doing now?"
"There is no imagination in this--that you are behaving to Eppy as
no man ought except he meant to marry her."
"How do you know I do not mean to marry her?"
"Do you mean to marry her, my lord?"
"What right have you to ask?"
"At least I live under the same roof with you both."
"What if she knows I do not intend to marry her?"
"My duty is equally plain: I am the friend of her only relatives.
If I did not do my best for the poor girl, I dared not look my
Master in the face!--Where is your honour, my lord?"
"I never told her I would marry her."
"I never supposed you had."
"Well, what then?"
"I repeat, such attentions as yours must naturally be supposed by
any innocent girl to mean marriage."
"Bah! she is not such a fool!"
"I fear she is fool enough not to know to what they must then
point!"
"They point to nothing."
"Then you take advantage of her innocence to amuse yourself with
her."
"What if she be not quite so innocent as you would have her."
"My lord, you are a scoundrel."
For one moment Forgue seemed to wrestle with an all but
uncontrollable fury; the next he laughed--but it was not a nice
laugh.
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