‘And if a gentleman told you so?’

’I shouldn’t believe him a bit, and I should not care to find out.  But I should like to have some girl for a friend whom I could love, oh, ten times better than myself.’

‘So should I.’

‘Have you no particular friend?’

‘I mean a girl whom I could love,—­oh, ten times better than myself.’

‘Now you are laughing at me, Sir Felix,’ said Miss Melmotte.

‘I wonder whether that will come to anything?’ said Paul Montague to Miss Carbury.  They had come back into the drawing-room, and had been watching the approaches to love-making which the baronet was opening.

’You mean Felix and Miss Melmotte.  I hate to think of such things, Mr Montague.’

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