Any good advice would be taken most gratefully,--if it didn't affect any one else.

But you might say things of the lady in question which I shouldn't bear patiently.' 'She can't be your equal.' 'I won't hear even that patiently.

You know nothing about her, except that she is a second-class passenger,--in which matter she is exactly my equal.

If you come to that, don't you think that you are degrading yourself in coming here and talking to me?
I am not your equal.' 'But you are.' 'And so is she, then.

We shan't arrive at anything, Mrs.Callander, and so you had better give it up.' Whereupon she did give it up and retreat to her own part of the ship, but not with a very good grace.
They had certainly become very intimate,--John Caldigate and Mrs.Smith; and there could be no doubt that, in the ordinary language of the world, he was making a fool of himself.