“You are a bachelor and an adventurer, and even though Alice tells me that she is most happy in your company, I begin to think that you have had some evil influence upon her. Yes, it must be so. And it is a shocking thing for even a married woman to have to say to a supposed gentleman, that I believe this: I believe that you and my sister have entered upon an illicit liaison which is the more shameful because I had warned her of your selfish and cruel nature, and I am certain that you have no honorable intentions concerning marriage, no matter what favors she may already have granted you.”

“I will take you up on that at once, Marion,” I told her angrily, for I could not much longer contain my irascibility at these insulting charges. “If indeed there is anything which stands between Alice and myself towards the ultimate happiness of wedlock, it is your own perspicacious determination to set us apart and to make us at odds with each other as you did before. But I have effected this reconciliation and I think that Alice is now wise enough and mature enough in her own emotions as a woman to be no longer influenced by your shrewish whimsies and pronouncements. By what right, I now ask you, do you dare to come into my apartment and to insult me with the epithet of vile seducer and adventurer? What do you know of me except perhaps that which you may have heard by rumor only, since only this day do we first meet face to face?”

At this, Marion tossed her head in high dudgeon and then darting me a look of implacable distaste she haughtily responded: “I see that it is utterly useless, sir, to prolong this discussion further. It is a great mistake for me to have come at all, for I consider you unregenerate and determined to offend me with the tone and tenure of your remarks. I shall ask you, therefore, to show me to the door, and I will take my leave of you. I can only hope that my poor sister comes off better than I begin to believe she will, once having returned to you. But you may be sure that I shall counsel her to the utmost of my abilities to make a complete break with you, sir, and to find herself a gentleman of greater courtesy and proper demeanor when in the presence of the tender sex.”