'Mr Broune, how foolish, how wrong, how mistaken! Is it not so?
Surely you do not wish to put an end to the friendship between us!' 'Put an end to our friendship, Lady Carbury! Oh, certainly not that.' 'Then why risk it by such an act?
Think of my son and of my daughter,-- both grown up.

Think of the past troubles of my life;--so much suffered and so little deserved.

No one knows them so well as you do.

Think of my name, that has been so often slandered but never disgraced! Say that you are sorry, and it shall be forgotten.' When a man has kissed a woman it goes against the grain with him to say the very next moment that he is sorry for what he has done.

It is as much as to declare that the kiss had not answered his expectation.
Mr Broune could not do this, and perhaps Lady Carbury did not quite expect it.