“Do as well as anything else!”

“I don’t think there’s any harm in that, Dame Durden,” said Ada, looking so confidingly at me across him; “because if it will do as well as anything else, it will do very well, I hope.”

“Oh, yes, I hope so,” returned Richard, carelessly tossing his hair from his forehead. “After all, it may be only a kind of probation till our suit is⁠—I forgot though. I am not to mention the suit. Forbidden ground! Oh, yes, it’s all right enough. Let us talk about something else.”

Ada would have done so willingly, and with a full persuasion that we had brought the question to a most satisfactory state. But I thought it would be useless to stop there, so I began again.