You would not honestly state the proportions of your income, and you affected to be faithful to the woman of seventy.

Most preposterous! Could any caricature of mine exceed in grotesqueness your sketch of yourself?
You are a brave and a generous man all the same: and I suspect it is more hoodwinking than egotism--or extreme egotism--that blinds you.

A certain amount you must have to be a man.

You did not like my paint, still less did you like my sincerity; you were annoyed by my corrections of your habits of speech; you were horrified by the age of seventy, and you were credulous--General Ople, listen to me, and remember that you have no collar on--you were credulous of my statement of my great age, or you chose to be so, or chose to seem so, because I had brushed your cat's coat against the fur.
And then, full of yourself, not thinking of Elizabeth, but to withdraw in the chivalrous attitude of the man true to his word to the old woman, only stickling to bring a certain independence to the common stock, because--I quote you! and you have no collar on, mind--"you could not be at your wife's mercy," you broke from your proposal on the money question.

Where was your consideration for Elizabeth then?
'Well, General, you were fond of thinking of yourself, and I thought I would assist you.