But I liked you.

I found you pleasanter than other men, and I even fancied that I loved you.

Had I not known this story, I might have married you, and been the most miserable woman alive, for a man who could play the villain to a hapless girl, who could stoop to so mean and dastardly an action as to cripple a rival yacht, is a creature so mean, so detestable, that wretched indeed would be the fate of the woman that married him.
"Do not contradict it, sir," she said, rising from her seat now with her face ablaze with indignation.

"I was watching you.

I had heard that story, and had heard another story of how the boat of an antagonist of yours at Henley had been crippled before a race, and I watched you from the time I came on board.