"
"You are tired of the subject? My dear Godfrey, I am going to make a
remark."
"What is it?"
"You live a great deal too much in the society of women. And you have
contracted two very bad habits in consequence. You have learnt to talk
nonsense seriously, and you have got into a way of telling fibs for
the pleasure of telling them. You can't go straight with your
lady-worshippers. I mean to make you go straight with me. Come, and
sit down. I am brimful of downright questions; and I expect you to be
brimful of downright answers."
She actually dragged him across the room to a chair by the window, where
the light would fall on his face. I deeply feel being obliged to report
such language, and to describe such conduct. But, hemmed in, as I am,
between Mr. Franklin Blake's cheque on one side and my own sacred regard
for truth on the other, what am I to do? I looked at my aunt. She sat
unmoved; apparently in no way disposed to interfere. I had never noticed
this kind of torpor in her before. It was, perhaps, the reaction after
the trying time she had had in the country. Not a pleasant symptom to
remark, be it what it might, at dear Lady Verinder's age, and with dear
Lady Verinder's autumnal exuberance of figure.
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