“Perhaps I intended you to say so, but I meant self-command. You had, somehow or other, broken bounds yesterday, and run away from your own management; but today you are got back again⁠—and as I cannot be always with you, it is best to believe your temper under your own command rather than mine.”

“It comes to the same thing. I can have no self-command without a motive. You order me, whether you speak or not. And you can be always with me. You are always with me.”

“Dating from three o’clock yesterday. My perpetual influence could not begin earlier, or you would not have been so much out of humour before.”

“Three o’clock yesterday! That is your date. I thought I had seen you first in February.”

“Your gallantry is really unanswerable. But (lowering her voice)⁠—nobody speaks except ourselves, and it is rather too much to be talking nonsense for the entertainment of seven silent people.”