By admiration I mean, all that may do you honour. Your bravery in coming hither, particularly; and your greatness of mind on your taking leave of us all. But did you not then mean to insult me? I meant to observe to you then, as I now do in your own palace, that you had not treated me as my heart told me I deserved to be treated: but when I thought your warmth was rising to the uneasiness of your assembled friends, instead of answering your question about my stay at Bologna, as you seemed to mean it, I invited myself to an attendance upon you here, at Naples, in such a manner as surely could not be construed as insult. I own, Grandison, you disconcerted me. I had intended to save you that journey. Was that your lordship's meaning, when, in my absence, you called at my lodgings, the day after the farewell-visit? Not absolutely: I was uneasy with myself. I intended to talk to you. What that talk might have produced, I know not: but had I invited you out, if I had found you at home, would you have answered my demands? According as you had put them. Will you answer them now, if I attend you as far as Rome, on your return to Florence? If they are demands fit to be answered. Do you expect I will make any that are not fit to be answered? My lord, I will explain myself. You had conceived causeless prejudices against me: you seemed inclined to impute to me a misfortune that was not, could not be, greater to you than it was to me. I knew my own innocence: I knew that I was rather an injured man, in having hopes given me, in which I was disappointed, not by my own fault: whom shall an innocent and an injured man fear?--Had I feared, my fear might have been my destruction. For was I not in the midst of your friends? A foreigner? If I would have avoided you, could I, had you been determined to seek me?--I would choose to meet even an enemy as a man of honour, rather than to avoid him as a malefactor. In my country, the law supposes flight a confession of guilt. Had you made demands upon me that I had not chosen to answer, I would have expostulated with you. I could perhaps have done so as calmly as I now speak. If you would not have been expostulated with, I would have stood upon my defence: but for the world I would not have hurt a brother of Clementina and Jeronymo, a son of the marquis and marchioness of Porretta, could I have avoided it. Had your passion given me any advantage over you, and I had obtained your sword, (a pistol, had the choice been left to me, I had refused for both our sakes,) I would have presented both swords to you, and bared my breast: It was before penetrated by the distresses of the dear Clementina, and of all your family--Perhaps I should only have said, 'If your lordship thinks I have injured you, take your revenge.'