'Why shouldn't I have something to say to you?'
'Because--. Oh, you know why. Besides, I've told you ever so often, my lord. I thought a gentleman would never go on with a lady when the lady has told him that she liked somebody else better.'
'Perhaps I don't believe you when you tell me.'
'Well; that is impudent! You may believe it then. I think I've given you reason to believe it, at any rate.'
'You can't be very fond of him now, I should think.'
'That's all you know about it, my lord. Why shouldn't I be fond of him? Accidents will happen, you know.'
'I don't want to make any allusion to anything that's unpleasant, Miss Melmotte.'
'You may say just what you please. All the world knows about it. Of course I went to Liverpool, and of course papa had me brought back again.'
'Why did not Sir Felix go?'
'I don't think, my lord, that that can be any business of yours.'
'But I think that it is, and I'll tell you why. You might as well let me say what I've got to say,--out at once.'
'You may say what you like, but it can't make any difference.'
'You knew me before you knew him, you know.'
'What does that matter? If it comes to that, I knew ever so many people before I knew you.'
'And you were engaged to me.'
'You broke it off.'
'Listen to me for a moment or two. I know I did. Or, rather, your father and my father broke it off for us.'
'If we had cared for each other they couldn't have broken it off. Nobody in the world could break me off as long as I felt that he really loved me;--not if they were to cut me in pieces. But you didn't care, not a bit. You did it just because your father told you. And so did I. But I know better than that now. You never cared for me a bit more than for the old woman at the crossing. You thought I didn't understand;--but I did. And now you've come again because your father has told you again. And you'd better go away.'
'There's a great deal of truth in what you say.'
'It's all true, my lord. Every word of it.'
'I wish you wouldn't call me my lord.'
'I suppose you are a lord, and therefore I shall call you so. I never called you anything else when they pretended that we were to be married, and you never asked me. I never even knew what your name was till I looked it out in the book after I had consented.'