“Indeed!--did he ask after Trafford too? Do you remember the day at the Governor's dinner he mistook you for Trafford's wife, and explained his mistake by the familiarity of his manner to you in the garden? It was the best bit of awkwardness I ever witnessed.” “I suppose you felt it so?” “_I_--_I_ felt it so! I suspect not! I don't believe there was a man at table enjoyed the blunder as heartily.” “I wish--how I wish!” said she, clasping her hands together. “Well--what?” “I wish I could be a man for one brief half-hour!” cried she; and her voice rang with a mild but clear resonance, that made it seem louder than it really was. “And then?” said he, mockingly. “Oh, do not ask me more!” cried she, as she bent down and hid her face in her hands. “I think I _will_ call on Lendrick,” said he, after a moment. “It may not be exactly the sort of task a man would best like; but I opine, if he is about to give his daughter in marriage to this fellow, he ought to know more about him. Now _I_ can tell him something, and my wife can tell him more. There's no indiscretion in saying so much, is there?” She made no reply; and after a pause he went on: “If Trafford had n't been a shabby dog, he 'd not have higgled about buying up those letters. Cane & Kincaid offered them to him for a thousand pounds. I suspect he 'd like to have the offer repeated now, but he shall not. He believes, or affects to believe, that, for my own sake, I 'll not make a public scandal; he doesn't know his man when he thinks this. _You_, Madam, might have taught him better, eh?” Still no reply, and he continued: “There 's not a man living despises public opinion as I do. If you are rich you trample on it, if poor it tramples on _you_; but so long as a fellow braves the world, and declares that he shrinks from nothing,--evades nothing,--neither turns right nor left to avoid its judgments,--the coward world gives away and lets him pass. _I 'll_ let them see that I don't care a straw for my own life, when at the price of it I can blow up a magazine.” “No, no, no!” muttered she, in a low but clear tone. “What do you mean by No, no?” cried he, in a voice of passion. “I mean that you care a great deal for your own life, and a great deal for your own personal safety; and that if your tyranny to a poor, crushed, weak woman has any bounds, it is from your fear, your abject fear, that in her desperation she might seek a protector, and find him.”