“And yet,” said Eugene, “I should like to see the fellow (Mortimer excepted) who would undertake to tell me that this was not a real sentiment on my part, won out of me by her beauty and her worth, in spite of myself, and that I would not be true to her. I should particularly like to see the fellow tonight who would tell me so, or who would tell me anything that could be construed to her disadvantage; for I am wearily out of sorts with one Wrayburn who cuts a sorry figure, and I would far rather be out of sorts with somebody else. ‘Eugene, Eugene, Eugene, this is a bad business.’ Ah! So go the Mortimer Lightwood bells, and they sound melancholy tonight.”

Strolling on, he thought of something else to take himself to task for. “Where is the analogy, Brute Beast,” he said impatiently, “between a woman whom your father coolly finds out for you and a woman whom you have found out for yourself, and have ever drifted after with more and more of constancy since you first set eyes upon her? Ass! Can you reason no better than that?”