"I really cannot perceive, sir," replied he, "that this in any way affects the matter in hand. Is my friend less injured--is his honor less tarnished because this unhappy woman has at last awoke to a sense of her degraded and pitiable condition?"
I thought of the sandwiches, Tom, but could say nothing.
"Are you less his greatest enemy on earth, sir?" cried he, passionately.
"Now listen to me patiently, my Lord," said I. "I 'll be as brief as I can, for both our sakes. I don't value it one rush whether I go out with your friend or not. If you want a proof of what I say, step into the little garden here and I 'll give it to you. I 'm neither boasting nor bloodthirsty, when I say that I know how to stand at either end of a pistol; but there's nothing to fight about between us."
"Oh, if you renew that line of argument," cried he, interrupting me, "It is totally impossible I can listen."
"And why not?" said I. "Is it a greater satisfaction to your friend to believe himself injured and dishonored than to know that he is neither one nor the other?"
"I can't tell," said I, for my head was quite confused with all the discussion.
"And why call yourself by _my_ name at Ems?"
"Nor what do you mean by the attitude in which I found you when I entered the room?"
"I can't tell that, either," cried I, driven to desperation by sheer embarrassment "It's no use asking me any more. I have been living for the last five or six weeks like one under a spell of enchantment. I can no more account for my actions than a patient in Swift's Hospital. I 'm afraid to commit my scattered thoughts to paper, lest they might convict me of insanity. I know and feel that I am a responsible being, but somehow my notions of right and wrong are so confused, I have learned to look on so many things differently from what I used, that I 'd cut a sorry figure under cross-examination on any matter of morality. There's the whole truth of it now. I 'd have kept it to myself if I could; I 'm heartily ashamed at owning to it--but I can't help it--it would come out. Therefore, don't bother me with, 'Why did you do this?' 'What made you do that?' for I can give you no reasons for anything."
"By Jove! this is a very singular affair," said he, leaning over the back of a chair, and staring me steadfastly in the face. "Your age--your standing in society--your appearance generally, Mr. Dodd, would, I feel bound to say, rather--" Here he hesitated and faltered, as if the right word was not forthcoming; and so I continued for him,--