"You ought to come there some day. You know one branch of the Hotspurs did live there for ever so long." "Is it a good house?" "Very bad indeed; but there are enormous woods, and the country is very wild, and everything is at sixes and sevens. However, of course you would not come, because it is in the middle of your London season. There would be ever so many things to keep you. You are a man who, I suppose, never was out of London in June in your life, unless some race meeting was going on." "Do you really take me for such as that, Emily?" "Yes, I do. That is what they tell me you are. Is it not true? Don't you go to races?" "I should be quite willing to undertake never to put my foot on a racecourse again this minute. I will do so now if you will only ask it of me." She paused a moment, half thinking that she would ask it, but at last she determined against it. "No," she said; "if you think it proper to stay away, you can do so without my asking it. I have no right to make such a request. If you think races are bad, why don't you stay away of your own accord?" "They are bad," he said. "Then why do you go to them?" "They are bad, and I do go to them. They are very bad, and I go to them very often. But I will stay away and never put my foot on another racecourse if you, my cousin, will ask me." "That is nonsense." "Try me. It shall not be nonsense. If you care enough about me to wish to save me from what is evil, you can do it. I care enough about you to give up the pursuit at your bidding." As he said this he looked down into her eyes, and she knew that the full weight of his gaze was upon her. She knew that his words and his looks together were intended to impress her with some feeling of his love for her. She knew at the moment, too, that they gratified her. And she remembered also in the same moment that her Cousin George was a black sheep. "If you cannot refrain from what is bad without my asking you," she said, "your refraining will do no good." He was making her some answer, when she insisted on being taken away. "I must get into the dancing-room; I must indeed, George. I have already thrown over some poor wretch. No, not yet, I see, however. I was not engaged for the quadrille; but I must go back and look after the people." He led her back through the crowd; and as he did so he perceived that Sir Harry's eyes were fixed upon him. He did not much care for that. If he could carry his Cousin Emily, he thought that he might carry the Baronet also. He could not get any special word with her again that night. He asked her for another dance, but she would not grant it to him. "You forget the princes and potentates to whom I have to attend," she said to him, quoting his own words.