"If you don't care about it, I need not say anything," said the Rector's wife, who could not help feeling affronted. "But I am so sorry that Mr Morgan and you don't get on," she continued, after a little pause. "I have no right to speak; but I take an interest in everything that belongs to the parish. If you would put a little confidence in my husband, things might go on better; but, in the mean time, I thought I might say to you, on my own account, that I had heard this scandal, and that I don't believe in it. If you do not understand my motive I can't help it," said the Rector's wife, who was now equally ready for friendship or for battle. "Thanks; I understand what you mean," said Mr Wentworth, who had come to himself. "But will you tell me what it is you don't believe in?" he asked, with a smile which Mrs Morgan did not quite comprehend. "I will tell you," she said, with a little quiet exasperation. "I don't think you would risk your prospects, and get yourself into trouble, and damage your entire life, for the sake of any girl, however pretty she might be. Men don't do such things for women nowadays, even when it is a worthy object," said the disappointed optimist. "And I believe you are a great deal more sensible, Mr Wentworth." There was just that tone of mingled approval and contempt in this speech which a woman knows how to deliver herself of without any appearance of feeling; and which no young man, however _blase_, can hear with composure. "Perhaps not," he said, with a little heat and a rising colour. "I am glad you think me so sensible." And then there ensued a pause, upon the issue of which depended the question of peace or war between these two. Mr Wentworth's good angel, perhaps, dropped softly through the dusky air at that moment, and jogged his perverse charge with the tip of a celestial wing. "And yet there might be women in the world for whom--" said the Curate; and stopped again. "I daresay you are not anxious to know my sentiments on the subject," he continued, with a little laugh. "I am sorry you think so badly--I mean so well of me."