“_Diametrically_!--Thank you for that word--it just saves my lost conscience. Commend me always to an epithet in the last resource for giving one latitude of conscience in these nice cases--I have not given two diametrically opposite--no, I have only given four that cross one another. One to your King Corny; another to my angel, Dora; another to the dear aunt; and a fourth to my dearer self. First promise to King Corny, to settle in the Black Islands; a gratuitous promise, signifying nothing--read Burlamaqui: second promise to Mademoiselle, to go and live with her at Paris; with _her_--on the face of it absurd! a promise extorted too under fear of my life, of immediate peril of being talked to death--see Vatel on extorted promises--void: third promise to my angel, Dora, to live wherever she pleases; but that’s a lover’s promise, made to be broken--see Love’s Calendar, or, if you prefer the bookmen’s authority, I don’t doubt that, under the head of promises made when a man is not in his right senses, some of those learned fellows in wigs would bring me off _sain et sauf_: but now for my fourth promise--I am a man of honour--when I make a promise intending to keep it, no man so scrupulous; all promises made to myself come under this head; and I have promised myself to live, and make my wife live, wherever I please, or not to live with her at all. This promise I shall bold sacred. Oblige me with a smile, Mr. Ormond--a smile of approbation.” “Excuse me, Mr. Connal, that is impossible--I am sincere.” “So am I, and sincerely you are too romantic. See things as they are, as a man of the world, I beseech you.” “I am not a man of the world, and I thank God for it,” cried Ormond. “Thank your God for what you please,” said Connal; “but in disdaining to be a man of the world, you will not, I hope, refuse to let me think you a man of common sense.” “Think what you please of me,” said Ormond, rather haughtily; “what I think of myself is the chief point with me.” “You will lose this little brusquerie of manner,” said Connal, “when you have mixed more with mankind. Providentially, we are all made dependent on one another’s good opinion. Even I, you see, cannot live without yours.” Whether from vanity, from the habit of wishing to charm every body in every house he entered, especially any one who made resistance; or whether he was piqued and amused with Ormond’s frank and natural character, and determined to see how far he could urge him, Connal went on, though our young hero gave him no encouragement to hope that he should win his good opinion.