"You are wrong, and you speak foolishly. You are angry, and you do not
weigh your words."

"Angry! What have I to do with so common a madness as anger? I am more
than angry. Do you think that because I have submitted to the veering
gusts of your good and evil humours these many months, I have lost all
consciousness of myself? Do you think that you can blow upon me as upon
a feather, from east and west, from north and south, hotly or coldly, as
your unstable nature moves you? Have you promised me nothing? Have you
given me no hope? Have you said and done nothing whereby you are bound?
Or can no pledge bind you, no promise find a foothold in your slippery
memory, no word of yours have meaning for those who hear it?"

"I never gave you either pledge or promise," answered Unorna in a harder
tone. "The only hope I have ever extended to you was this, that I would
one day answer you plainly. I have done so. You are not satisfied. Is
there anything more to be said? I do not bid you leave my house for
ever, any more than I mean to drive you from my friendship."

"From your friendship! Ah, I thank you, Unorna; I most humbly thank
you! For the mercy you extend in allowing me to linger near you, I am
grateful! Your friend, you say? Ay, truly, your friend and servant, your
servant and your slave, your slave and your dog. Is the friend impatient
and dissatisfied with his lot? A soft word shall turn away his anger. Is
the servant over-presumptuous? Your scorn will soon teach him his duty.
Is the slave disobedient? Blows will cure him of his faults. Does your
dog fawn upon you too familiarly? Thrust him from you with your foot and
he will cringe and cower till you smile again. Your friendship--I have
no words for thanks!"