"You're as hard as nails. In whose house? Or--stay. Prompt me a little. Tell me the first syllable of your name. Then the rest will come with a rush." "My name is Matilda Muggins." "I've a great mind to punish your untruthfulness by pretending to believe you," said he. "Have you really got a husband?" "Why do you doubt it?" said she. "I don't doubt it. Have you?" "I don't know what to answer." "Don't you know whether you've got a husband?" he protested. "I don't know what I'd better let you believe. Yes, on the whole, I think you may as well assume that I've got a husband," she concluded. "And a lover, too?" he asked. "Really! I like your impertinence!" she bridled. "I only asked to show a polite interest. I knew the answer would be an indignant negative. You're an Englishwoman, and you're _nice_. Oh, one can see with half an eye that you're _nice_. But that a nice Englishwoman should have a lover is as inconceivable as that she should have side-whiskers. It's only the reg'lar bad-uns in England who have lovers. There's nothing between the family pew and the divorce court. One nice Englishwoman is a match for the whole Eleven Thousand Virgins of Cologne." "To hear you talk, one might fancy you were not English yourself. For a man of the name of Field, you're uncommonly foreign. You _look_ rather foreign, too, you know, by-the-bye. You haven't at all an English cast of countenance," she considered. "I've enjoyed the advantages of a foreign education. I was brought up abroad," he explained. "Where your features unconsciously assimilated themselves to a foreign type? Where you learned a hundred thousand strange little foreign things, no doubt? And imbibed a hundred thousand unprincipled little foreign notions? And all the ingenuous little foreign prejudices and misconceptions concerning England?" she questioned. "Most of them," he assented. "_Perfide Albion?_ English hypocrisy?" she pursued. "Oh, yes, the English are consummate hypocrites. But there's only one objection to their hypocrisy--it so rarely covers any wickedness. It's such a disappointment to see a creature stalking toward you, laboriously draped in sheep's clothing, and then to discover that it's only a sheep. You, for instance, as I took the liberty of intimating a moment ago, in spite of your perfectly respectable appearance, are a perfectly respectable woman. If you weren't, wouldn't I be making furious love to you, though!" "As I am, I can see no reason why you shouldn't make furious love to me, if it would amuse you. There's no harm in firing your pistol at a person who's bullet-proof," she laughed. "No; it's merely a wanton waste of powder and shot," said he. "However, I shouldn't stick at that. The deuce of it is--You permit the expression?" "I'm devoted to the expression." "The deuce of it is, you profess to be married."