"Do you really mean that Captain Stanwick has forbidden you to call on me ?" I asked as soon as I could speak.
"I have exactly repeated what Captain Stanwick said to me half an hour since," Lionel Varleigh answered.
In my indignation at hearing this, I entirely forgot the rash words of encouragement which the Captain had entrapped me into speaking to him.
When I think of it now, I am ashamed to repeat the language in which I resented this man's presumptuous assertion of authority over me.

Having committed one act of indiscretion already, my anxiety to assert my freedom of action hurried me into committing another.

I bade Mr.
Varleigh welcome whenever he chose to visit me, in terms which made his face flush under the emotions of pleasure and surprise which I had aroused in him.

My wounded vanity acknowledged no restraints.

I signed to him to take a seat on the sofa at my side; I engaged to go to his lodgings the next day, with my aunt, and see the collection of curiosities which he had amassed in the course of his travels.