Cannot, madam?

Never!--I can see you think yourself despised; but you do yourself
great wrong.

My mind is so disturbed, by the abrupt and absurd folly with which I
accused you, unheard, this morning, that it is less now in a state to
do my cause justice than at any other time--Still I will be a man--Your
word, madam, was--Cannot!--

It was.

Permit me to ask, is it person--?

No--certainly not. Person would with me be always a distant
consideration. [You, Louisa, know how very far from exceptionable the
person of Frank is, if that were any part of the question.]

You are no flatterer, madam, and you have thought proper occasionally
to express your approbation of my morals and mind.

Yet my expressions have never equalled my feelings!--Never!

Then, madam, where is the impossibility? In what does it consist? The
world may think meanly of me, for the want of what I myself hold in
contempt: but surely you cannot join in the world's injustice?

I cannot think meanly of you.