'That means, you will,' said she.

His not denying it passed for the affirmative.

Then indeed she bloomed with love of him.

'Yet do say yes,' she begged.

'I'll go, ma'am,' shouted the earl. 'I'll go, my love,' he said softly.




CHAPTER LIII

THE APOLOGY TO DR. SHRAPNEL

'You and Nevil are so alike,' Lady Romfrey said to her lord, at some
secret resemblance she detected and dwelt on fondly, when the earl was on
the point of starting a second time for Bevisham to perform what she had
prompted him to conceive his honourable duty, without a single intimation
that he loathed the task, neither shrug nor grimace.

'Two ends of a stick are pretty much alike: they're all that length
apart,' said he, very little in the humour for compliments, however well
braced for his work.

His wife's admiring love was pleasant enough. He preferred to have it
unspoken. Few of us care to be eulogized in the act of taking a nauseous
medical mixture.