I am no doubt too much accustomed to his way already to notice anything of that sort.
If you desire it. (_Aside, whilst they are seating themselves_.) I must not let this moment slip by unused.
Tell me! Shall I not be the most enviable of women with my Mellefont?
If Mellefont knows how to appreciate his happiness, Miss Sampson will make him the most enviable of men. But----
And for this reason infinitely more to be esteemed.
Frank--not seldom imprudently so. My "but" is a proof of it. A very imprudent "but."
I do not think that my Lady Solmes can wish through this evasion to make me more uneasy. It must be a cruel mercy that only rouses suspicions of an evil which it might disclose.
Not at all, Miss Sampson! You attach far too much importance to my "but." Mellefont is a relation of mine----
Then all the more important is the slightest charge which you have to make against him.
But even were Mellefont my brother, I must tell you, that I should unhesitatingly side with one of my own sex against him, if I perceived that he did not act quite honestly towards her. We women ought properly to consider every insult shown to one of us as an insult to the whole sex, and to make it a common affair, in which even the sister and mother of the guilty one ought not to hesitate to share.
Has already been my guide now and then in doubtful cases.
No, Miss Sampson, if you mean to tremble, let us speak of something else----
I am sorry to be misunderstood. I at least, if I place myself in imagination in Miss Sampson's position, would regard as a favour any more exact information which one might give me about the man with whose fate I was about to unite my own for ever.
What do you wish, Madam? Do I not know my Mellefont already? Believe me I know him, as I do my own soul. I know that he loves me----
_Has_ loved others. That I know also. Was he to love me, before he knew anything about me? Can I ask to be the only one who has had charm enough to attract him? Must I not confess it to myself, that I have striven to please him? Is he not so lovable, that he must have awakened this endeavour in many a breast? And isn't it but natural, if several have been successful in their endeavour?
You defend him with just the same ardour and almost the same words with which I have often defended him already. It is no crime to have loved; much less still is it a crime to have been loved. But fickleness is a crime.