The Prime Minister by Anthony Trollope
page 48 of 1055 (04%)
page 48 of 1055 (04%)
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'Certainly there has.'
'A young man should be very chary about how he speaks to another man, to a stranger, about his sister. A sister's name should be too sacred for club talk.' 'Club talk! Good heavens, sir, you don't think that I have spoken of Emily in that way? There isn't a man in London who has a higher respect for his sister than I have for mine. This man, by no means in a light way, but with all seriousness, has told me that he was attached to Emily; and I believing him to be a gentleman and well to do in this world, have referred him to you. Can that have been wrong?' 'I don't know how he's "to do", as you call it. I haven't asked, and I don't mean to ask. But I doubt his being a gentleman. He is not an English gentleman. What was his father?' 'I haven't the least idea.' 'Or his mother?' 'He has never mentioned her to me.' 'Nor his family; nor anything of their antecedents? He is a man fallen out of the moon. All that is nothing to us as passing acquaintances. Between men such ignorance should I think bar absolute intimacy;--but that may be a matter of taste. But it should be held to be utterly antagonistic to any such alliance as that of marriage. He seems to be a friend of yours. You had |
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