"
"Answer it then. No; you cannot answer it, because you would condemn
yourself. Now, Lord Fawn, what do you mean to do?"
"I had thought, Lady Eustace, that any regard which you might ever have
entertained for me--"
"Well; what had you thought of my regard?"
"That it had been dissipated."
"Have I told you so? Has any one come to you from me with such a message?"
"Have you not received attentions from any one else?"
"Attentions; what attentions? I have received plenty of attentions, most
flattering attentions. I was honoured even this morning by a most
gratifying attention on the part of his grace the Duke of Omnium."
"I did not mean that."
"What do you mean, then? I am not going to marry the Duke of Omnium
because of his attention, nor any one else. If you mean, sir, after the
other inquiries you have done me the honour to make, to throw it in my
face now, that I have--have in any way rendered myself unworthy of the
position of your wife because people have been civil and kind to me in my
sorrow, you are a greater dastard than I took you to be. Tell me at once,
sir, whom you mean."
It is hardly too much to say that the man quailed before her.
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