This freedom of mine seemed to save the married
pair a good deal of recrimination.
You remind me, madam, that I must be gone, rising and looking at my
watch.
You must not leave us, Sir Charles, said Sir Harry.
I beg excuse, Sir Harry--Yours, also, madam, smiling--Lady Beauchamp must
not twice wish me out of the house.
I will not excuse you, sir, replied she--If you have a desire to see the
matter completed--She stopt--You must stay to dinner, be that as it will.
'Be that as it will,' madam!--You shall not recede.
Recede! I have not yet complied--
O these women! They are so used to courtship, that they know not how to
do right things without it--And, pardon me, madam, not always with it.
Bold man--Have I consented--
Have you not, madam, given a lady's consent? That we men expect not to
be very explicit, very gracious.--It is from such non-negative consents,
that we men make silence answer all we wish.
I leave Sir Charles Grandison to manage this point, said Sir Harry. In
my conscience, I think the common observation just: a stander-by sees
more of the game, than he that plays.
It ever will be so, Sir Harry--But I will tell you, my lady and I have as
good as agreed the matter--
I have agreed to nothing, Sir Harry--
Hush, madam--I am doing you credit.--Lady Beauchamp speaks aside
sometimes, Sir Harry: you are not to hear any thing she says, that you
don't like.
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