Only because the salary was a welcome certainty to a poor man--not at all because the new position brought me into personal association with Miss Emily Brown! Do you begin to see why I have troubled you with all this talk about myself?
Apply the contemptible system of self-delusion which my confession has revealed, to that holiday arrangement for a tour in the north which has astonished and annoyed you.

I am going to travel this afternoon by your train.

Only because I feel an intelligent longing to see the northernmost county of England--not at all because I won't let you trust yourself alone with Mrs.Rook! Not at all because I won't leave you to enter Sir Jervis Redwood's service without a friend within reach in case you want him! Mad?
Oh, yes--perfectly mad.

But, tell me this: What do all sensible people do when they find themselves in the company of a lunatic?
They humor him.

Let me take your ticket and see your luggage labeled: I only ask leave to be your traveling servant.
If you are proud--I shall like you all the better, if you are--pay me wages, and keep me in my proper place in that way." Some girls, addressed with this reckless intermingling of jest and earnest, would have felt confused, and some would have felt flattered.
With a good-tempered resolution, which never passed the limits of modesty and refinement, Emily met Alban Morris on his own ground.
"You have said you respect me," she began; "I am going to prove that I believe you.