"You never lose _your_ temper. Now, I say that as you are such a mistress of yourself under all circumstances, it's your own fault that you don't make yourself more agreeable." "I regret that you don't think me agreeable, Colonel Stanburne." "Well, now, _are_ you, Helena? Here am I under the blow of a tremendous calamity, and you haven't a word to say to me. If Fyser knew what had happened, he'd be more sorry than you are." "What would you have me say to you? If I said all you deserve, would you listen to it? You appear to forget that you have as yet expressed no sympathy for me, whom you have ruined by your folly, whereas you are angry because I have said little to you." "_You_ ruined, Helena!" said John Stanburne, with a bitter laugh; "_you_ ruined--why, you never had any thing to lose! Your father allows you six hundred a-year, and he'll continue your allowance, I suppose. You never owned a thousand pounds in your life. But it's different with me. I'm losing all I was born to." The answer to this was too obvious for Lady Helena to condescend to make it. She remained perfectly silent, which irritated the Colonel more than any imaginable answer could have irritated him. He certainly was wrong so far as this, that any one who _asks_ for sympathy puts himself in a false position. Condolence must be freely given, or it is worthless. And any disposition which her ladyship may have felt towards a more wifely frame of mind was effectually checked by his advancing these claims of his. She was not to be scolded into amiability. "Hang it, Helena!" he broke out, "I didn't think there was a woman in England that would behave as you are behaving under such circumstances. The thing doesn't seem to make the least impression upon you. There you sit, doing your confounded sewing, just as if nothing had happened, you do. You won't sit there doing your sewing long. The bailiffs will turn you out. They'll be here in a day or two." "You are becoming very coarse, sir; your language is not fit for a woman to hear." "It's the plain truth, it is. But women won't hear the plain truth. They don't like it--they never do. But your ladyship must be made to understand that this cannot go on. We cannot stop here, at Wenderholme. The place will be sold, and every thing in it. Now, I should just like to know what your ladyship proposes to do. If my way of asking your ladyship this question isn't polite enough, please do me the favor to instruct me in the necessary forms." "If you could speak without oaths, that would be something gained." "Answer me my question, can't you? Where do you mean to go--what do you mean to do?" "I intend to go to my father's." "Well, that's plain. Why couldn't you tell me that sooner? You mean to go to old Adisham's. But I'll be hanged if I'll go there, to be patronized as a beggarly relation." "Very well." "Very well, is it? It's very well that you are to live in one place, and I in another."