Allow me to offer you my arm.

No?
You hesitate?
You distrust me?
Good heavens! is it possible you can have heard anything to my disadvantage ?" "Quite possible," said Magdalen, without a moment's flinching from the answer.
"May I inquire the particulars ?" asked the captain, with the politest composure.

"Don't spare my feelings; oblige me by speaking out.

In the plainest terms, now, what have you heard ?" She answered him with a woman's desperate disregard of consequences when she is driven to bay--she answered him instantly, "I have heard you are a Rogue." "Have you, indeed ?" said the impenetrable Wragge.

"A Rogue?
Well, I waive my privilege of setting you right on that point for a fitter time.