“Really,” says the uneasy little gentleman, “really, Mrs. Lammle, I should take it as a favour if you could excuse me from any further confidence. It has ever been one of the objects of my life⁠—which, unfortunately, has not had many objects⁠—to be inoffensive, and to keep out of cabals and interferences.”

Mrs. Lammle, by far the more observant of the two, scarcely finds it necessary to look at Twemlow while he speaks, so easily does she read him.

“My postscript⁠—to retain the term I have used”⁠—says Mrs. Lammle, fixing her eyes on his face, to enforce what she says herself⁠—“coincides exactly with what you say, Mr. Twemlow. So far from troubling you with any new confidence, I merely wish to remind you what the old one was. So far from asking you for interference, I merely wish to claim your strict neutrality.”