"No, no!" I said.

He grew less self-conscious.

"By Jove! how pretty you are in that cap!"

"Am I?"

"Yes, and you are laughing, and not snubbing a fellow so dreadfully as you generally do."

"No?"

"No--well, I came round because I couldn't sleep. I haven't been able to sleep for three nights. I haven't seen you since Sat.u.r.day, you know."

"No, I did not know."

My heart began to beat in a sickening fashion. He leaned close to me over the sill. I put down the cup and took up the miniature. I thought if I looked at Ambrosine Eustasie that would give me courage. I went on dusting it, and I was glad to see my hands did not shake.

"Yes, you are so devilishly tantalizing--I beg your pardon, but you don't chuck yourself at a fellow's head like the other girls."

I felt I was "chucking myself at his head"--horrible phrase--at that very moment, but as speech is given us to conceal our thoughts, I said, "No, indeed!"

"Ambrosine--" (Oh, how his saying my name jarred and made me creep!) "Er--you know I am jolly fond of you. If you'll marry me you'll not have to dust any more beastly old china, I promise you."

I have never had a tooth out--fortunately, mine are all very white and sound--but I have always heard the agony goes on growing until the final wrench, and then all is over. I feel I know now what the sensation is. I could have screamed, but when he finished speaking I felt numb. I was incapable of answering.

"I've generally been able to buy all I've wanted," he went on, "but I never wanted a wife before." He laughed nervously. That was a straw for me.

"Do you want to buy me?" I said, "Because, if it is only a question of that, it perhaps could be managed."

"Oh, I say--I never meant that!" he bl.u.s.tered, "Oh, you know I love you like anything, and I want you to love me."

"That is just it," I said, quite low.

I felt too mean, I could not pretend I loved him. I must tell the truth, and then, if he would not have me--me--Ambrosine de Calincourt Athelstan!--why, then, vulgarly dramatic or no, I should have to jump into the river to make things easy for grandmamma.

"What is 'just it'?" he asked.

"I do not love you."

His face fell.

"I kind of thought you didn't," he faltered, the bl.u.s.ter gone; "but"--cheering up--"of course you will in time, if you will only marry me."

"I don't think I ever shall," I managed to whisper; "but if you like to marry me on that understanding, you may."

He climbed through the window and put his arms round me.

"Darling!" he said, and kissed me deliberately.

Oh, the horror of it! I shut my eyes, and in the emotion of the moment I bent the bow on the top of the frame of Ambrosine Eustasie.

Then, dragging myself from his embrace and stuttering with rage, "How dare you!" I gasped. "How dare you!"

He looked sulky and offended.

"You said you would marry me--what is a fellow to understand?"

"You are to understand that I will not be mauled and--and kissed like--like Hephzibah at the back door," I said, with freezing dignity, my head in the air.

"Hoity-toity!" (hideous expression!) "What airs you give yourself! But you look so deuced pretty when you are angry!" I did not melt, but stood on the defensive.

He became supplicating again.

"Ambrosine, I love you--don't be cross with me. I won't make you angry again until you are used to me. Ambrosine, say you forgive me."

He took my hand. His hands are horrid to touch--coa.r.s.e and damp. I shuddered involuntarily.

He looked pained at that. A dark-red flush came over all his face. He squared his shoulders and got over the window-sill again.

"You cold statue!" he said, spitefully. "I will leave you."

"Go," was all I said, and I did not move an inch.

He stood looking at me for a few moments, then with one bound he was in the room again and had seized me in his arms.

"No, I sha'n't!" he exclaimed. "You have promised, and I don't care what you say or do. I will keep you to your word."

Mercifully, at that moment Hephzibah opened the door, and in the confusion her entrance caused him, he let me go. I simply flew from the room and up to my own; and there, I am ashamed to say, I cried--sat on the floor and cried like a gutter-child. Oh, if grandmamma could have seen me, how angry she would have been! I have never been allowed to cry--a relaxation for the lower cla.s.ses, she has always told me.

My face burned. All the bottles of Lubin in grandmamma's cupboard would not wash off the stain of that kiss, I felt. I scrubbed my face until it was crimson, and then I heard grandmamma's voice and had to pull myself together.

I have always said she had hawk's eyes; they see everything, even with the blinds down in her room. When I went in she noticed my red lids and asked the cause of them.

"Mr. Gurrage has been here and has asked me to marry him, grandmamma,"

I said.

"At this hour in the morning! What does the young man mean?"

"He saw me dusting the Sevres from the road and came in."

Grandmamma kissed me--a thing of the greatest rareness.

"My child," she said, "try and remember to accept fate without noise.

Now go and rest until breakfast, or you will not be pretty for your ball to-night."

The Marquis's congratulations were different when we met in the _salle a manger_; he kissed my hand. How cool and fine his old, withered fingers felt!

"You will be the most beautiful _debutante_ to-night, _ma chere enfant_," he said; "and all the _felicitations_ are for Monsieur Gurrage. You are a n.o.ble girl--but such is life. My wife detested me--_dans le temps_. But what will you?"