And what if you did?
Ladies never care about things getting cold.

It is gentlemen only who have feelings in such matters as that." "I don't know that there is much difference; but, however--" Then they were in the dining-room, and as the servant remained there during dinner, there was nothing in their conversation worth repeating.

After dinner they still remained down stairs, seating themselves on the two sides of the fire, Clara having fully resolved that she would not on such an evening as this leave Captain Aylmer to drink his glass of port wine by himself.
"I suppose I may stay with you, mayn't I ?" she said.
"Oh, dear, yes; I'm sure I'm very much obliged.

I'm not at all wedded to solitude." Then there was a slight pause.
"That's lucky," she said, "as you have made up your mind to be wedded in another sort of way." Her voice as she spoke was very low, but there was a gentle ring of restrained joyousness in it which ought to have gone at once to his heart and made him supremely blessed for the time.
"Well,--yes," he answered.

"We are in for it now, both of us;--are we not?
I hope you have no misgivings about it, Clara." "Who?
I?
I have misgivings! No, indeed.