Читать книгу A Comedy of Elopement онлайн

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“No,” answered Aimée, “I did not tell him anything of the kind. In the first place, you never told me to do so, and, in the second place, I would not if you had. It was bad enough to bring him here only to disappoint him. You have no right to order him to go away.”

“Upon my word, you seem to espouse Mr. Kyrle’s cause very warmly!” said Fanny. “Right or no right, I wish I had sent him word to go away at once. It would be terrible if he stopped here and met Mr. Meredith.”

“It would not surprise him,” said Aimée. “As soon as I told him that you said he must not attempt to see you, he exclaimed, ‘Then there is another lover!’”

“Did he?” said Fanny, with a laugh. “How like him! He always had that kind of penetration. One might try to deceive him, but he would go straight to the root of the matter. But then, of course, jealousy helped him in this case. He knows me well enough to be sure that, if I had not somebody else, I would not want him to go away.”

“So it is not him—it is just somebody—that you want,” said Aimée, indignantly.