The Denial

'Eugene,' resumed Mortimer, disregarding the light interruption, and laying a hand upon Eugene's shoulder, as he, Mortimer, stood before him seated on his bed, 'you are withholding something from me.' Eugene looked at him, but said nothing. 'All this past summer, you have been withholding something from me. Before we entered on our boating vacation, you were as bent upon it as I have seen you upon anything since we first rowed together. But you cared very little for it when it came, often found it a tie and a drag upon you, and were constantly away. Now it was well enough half-a-dozen times, a dozen times, twenty times, to say to me in your own odd manner, which I know so well and like so much, that your disappearances were precautions against our boring one another; but of course after a short while I began to know that they covered something. I don't ask what it is, as you have not told me; but the fact is so. Say, is it not?'

 'I give you my word of honour, Mortimer,' returned Eugene, after a serious pause of a few moments, 'that I don't know.' 'Don't know, Eugene?' 'Upon my soul, don't know. I know less about myself than about most people in the world, and I don't know.' 'You have some design in your mind?' 'Have I? I don't think I have.' 'At any rate, you have some subject of interest there which used not to be there?' 'I really can't say,' replied Eugene, shaking his head blankly, after pausing again to reconsider. 'At times I have thought yes; at other times I have thought no. Now, I have been inclined to pursue such a subject; now I have felt that it was absurd, and that it tired and embarrassed me. Absolutely, I can't say. Frankly and faithfully, I would if I could.' So replying, he clapped a hand, in his turn, on his friend's shoulder, as he rose from his seat upon the bed, 

Mortimer notices something is up with his flatmate and Friend Eugene, who declines to tell him that he has dubious designs on the fair innocent Lizzie.  - Our Mutual Friend- C Dickens.