I
have a little overstated it, but I am near the mark.'
'Your ladyship wanting courage!' cried the General.
'Refresh yourself by meditating on it,' said she. 'And to prove it to
you, I was glad to take this house when I knew I was to have a gallant
gentleman for a neighbour. No visitors will be admitted, General Ople, so
you are bare-throated only to me: sit quietly. One day you speculated on
the paint in my cheeks for the space of a minute and a half:--I had said
that I freckled easily. Your look signified that you really could not
detect a single freckle for the paint. I forgave you, or I did not. But
when I found you, on closer acquaintance, as indifferent to your
daughter's happiness as you had been to her reputation . . .'
'My daughter! her reputation! her happiness!'
General Ople raised his eyes under a wave, half uttering the outcries.
'So indifferent to her reputation, that you allowed a young man to talk
with her over the wall, and meet her by appointment: so reckless of the
girl's happiness, that when I tried to bring you to a treaty, on her
behalf, you could not be dragged from thinking of yourself and your own
affair.
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