I had been told Mrs Gerrarde was no enemy to a chearful glass; but the designs she had formed upon me put her on her guard, and I observed she drank nothing but wine and water, made very small. This, I was afraid, would not be sufficient to keep up her courage under what I intended to say to her. I pretended to be disposed to drink, and insisted on her helping me out with a flask of burgundy. With affected coyness she suffered me to fill her glass; the second offer I made, her resistance was less; the third she made no objection to at all; and the fourth she filled for herself. The wine was excellent; not that poor sort which is commonly drunk in France. In short, we finished our bottle. I thought her now a match for what I had to say. I had made the glass pass briskly, and had filled up the intervals with singing catches, and rattling on any subject that came into my head. Mrs Gerrarde, who no doubt expected I should make an advance of some kind or other, seemed to grow a little out of humour at my levity. I found the burgundy had been quite thrown away upon her, and had had very little effect: she was silent for a few minutes, and seemed to be considering of something: at last she opened, and I will give you the conversation that passed between us, by way of dialogue. _Mrs G_ Mr Faulkland, it is time that you and I should understand one another's meaning a little better than we do at present: you know very well that you have put an end to all my expectations in England: indeed, if I were at liberty, I could not have the face to return there again in any character but that of your wife. (I was glad she began first, and that, though I guessed at her views, she had used so little caution in discovering them, as it at once roused in me an indignation which I could not suppress, and without which I could not have brought myself to mortify her as she deserved). _Mr F_ My _wife_, madam! (stopping her at that tremendous word) be pleased to tell me if I heard you right? _Mrs G_ Yes, Sir, it was as your wife I said: if you think you and I are to live together on any other terms, you will find yourself exceedingly mistaken. (I smiled, and suffered her to go on). I thought, Sir (stifling the anger that I saw rising), that the words which you yourself dictated in the letter which I just now wrote, where you say, _I had in you found a protector, and one by whose means I should be able to pass the rest of my life in a manner more suitable to a woman of a generous way of thinking, than that wherein she considered herself as incroaching on the rights of another_--Were not these your own words, Sir? _Mr F_ They were, Madam. (To say the truth, there was something equivocal in the paragraph, though, when I desired her to write it, this construction never entered into my head). _Mrs G_ Then, Sir, how am I to understand them?