He flushed angrily, but answered with much of the same desire to annoy, "I suppose it was. I felt it very much. Dora was the loveliest girl in the city. There are none left like her."
"It will be a good thing for New York if that is the case. I'm not one that wants the city to myself, but I can spare Dora STANHOPE, and feel the better for it."
"The most beautiful of God's creatures!"
"You've surely lost your sight or your judgment, Fred. She is just a dusky-skinned girl, with big, brown eyes. You can pick her sort up by the thousand in any large city. And a wandering-hearted, giddy creature, too, that will spread as she goes, no doubt. I'm sorry for Basil Stanhope, he didn't deserve such a fate."
"Indeed, he did not! It is beyond measure too good for him."
"I've always heard that affliction is the surest way to heaven. Dora will lead him that road, and it will be more sure than pleasant. Poor fellow! He'll soon be as ready to curse his wedding-day as Job was to curse his birthday. A costly wife she will be to keep, and misery in the keeping of her. But if you came to talk to me about Dora STANHOPE, I'll cease talking, for I don't find it any great entertainment."
"I came to talk to you about Squire Rawdon."
"What about the Squire? Keep it in your mind that he and I were sweethearts when we were children. I haven't forgotten that fact."
"You know Rawdon Court is mortgaged to me?"
"I've heard you say so--more than once."
"I intend to foreclose the mortgage in September. I find that I can get twice yes, three times--the interest for my money in American securities."
"How do you know they are securities?"
"Bryce Denning has put me up to several good things."
"Well, if you think good things can come that road, you are a bigger fool than I ever thought you."
"Fool! Madam, I allow no one to call me a fool, especially without reason."
"Reason, indeed! What reason was there in your dillydallying after Dora Denning when she was engaged, and then making yourself like a ghost for her after she is married? As for the good things Bryce Denning offers you in exchange for a grand English manor, take them, and then if I called you not fool before, I will call you fool in your teeth twice over, and much too good for you! Aye, I could call you a worse name when I think of the old Squire--he's two years older than I am--being turned out of his lifelong home. Where is he to go to?"