"M'sieu', dat's more closer to de insult dan w'at you call me jus' now.

You don' need for spoke it." "You're right! There's no need to tell you that.

As for showing her certain attentions--well, I admit that I have, as you know, but, thank God, I can say I've been a gentleman and addressed her as I would the fairest lady I've known." "An' you mean for marry, eh ?" probed the other.
Now, no man could have answered such a direct question easily, and in this case it was especially hard for the Kentuckian, who was torn between his ungovernable desire and that decision which cold reason had thrust upon him.

He wanted to say, "Yes, I'll marry her to-morrow," but something bade him pause before he sacrificed upon this altar of a youthful love his life, his hopes, his ambitions.

Had he not wrestled with himself for months in thinking it all out, until his mind was weary and listless with the effort?
For the great test that tries a man's soul and compels him to know himself had not yet come to Meade Burrell; wherefore, he hesitated long.
"I did not say so," he declared, at last.