"
"Never mind how awkwardly the offer has been made, provided it is
genuine," returned the practical Captain Graham. "But I don't like
'almosts.' Besides, you really must mind what you are about, Lydia; for
I assure you there is no doubt at all about the fact of his engagement.
He stated it himself."
"Well, and suppose he did," said Lydia, "and suppose some good-for-
nothing woman, in an equivocal position, _has_ trapped him into an
offer. Is he the first man who has got into a dilemma of that kind, and
got out of it? He thought I cared for Lionel, and that so there was no
hope for him. I can quite understand his getting himself into an
entanglement of the kind, under such circumstances."
Gordon Graham smiled, a certain satirical smile, intensely irritating
to his sister's temper (which she called her nerves), and which it was
rather fortunate she did not see. He was perfectly alive to the
omnivorous quality of his sister's vanity, and perfectly aware that it
had on many occasions led her into a fool's paradise, whence she had
been ejected into the waste regions of disappointment and bitterness of
spirit. He had been quite willing that she should try the experiment
upon Douglas Dale, to which that gentleman had just been subjected; but
he had not been sanguine as to its results, and he did not implicitly
confide in the very exhilarating statement now made to him by Lydia.
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