"What do people say?"

"Everybody thinks that there is some fraud. There is old Mrs. Montacute
Jones,--I don't know anybody who knows everything better than she
does,--and she was saying that you would be driven by your duty to
investigate the matter. 'I daresay he'd prefer to do nothing,' she
said, 'but he must.' I felt that to be so true! Then Mr. Mildmay, who
is so very quiet, said that there would be a lawsuit. Papa absolutely
laughed at the idea of the boy being Lord Popenjoy, though he was
always on good terms with your brother. Mr. Houghton says that nobody
in society will give the child the name. Of course he's not very
bright, but on matters like that he does know what he's talking about.
When I hear all this I feel it a great deal, Lord George."

"I know what a friend you are."

"Indeed I am. I think very often what I might have been, but could not
be; and though I am not jealous of the happiness and honours of
another, I am anxious for your happiness and your honours." He was
sitting near her, on a chair facing the fire, while she was leaning
back on the sofa. He went on staring at the hot coals, flattered, in
some sort elate, but very disturbed. The old feeling was coming back
upon him. She was not as pretty as his wife,--but she was, he thought,
more attractive, had more to say for herself, was more of a woman. She
could pour herself into his heart and understand his feelings, whereas
Mary did not sympathize with him at all in this great family trouble.
But then Mary was, of course, his wife, and this woman was the wife of
another man. He would be the last man in the world,--so he would have
told himself could he have spoken to himself on the subject,--to bring
disgrace on himself and misery on other people by declaring his love to
another man's wife. He was the last man to do an injury to the girl
whom he had made his own wife! But he liked being with his old love,
and felt anxious to say a word to her that should have in it something
just a little beyond the ordinary tenderness of friendship. The proper
word, however, did not come to him at that moment. In such moments the
proper word very often will not come. "You are not angry with me for
saying so?" she asked.

"How can I be angry?"

"I don't think that there can have been such friendship, as there was
between you and me, and that it should fade and die away, unless there
be some quarrel. You have not quarrelled with me?"

"Quarrelled with you?