“Which one, my precious?” inquired Sylvester, relapsing into idiocy.
“That—that you are worse than Ugolino. I wonder you didn’t hit me!”
“You know very well I wouldn’t hurt a hair of your head, Sparrow. I am sure this is a very smart hat, but do allow me to remove it!” he said, pulling the bow loose as he spoke, and casting the hat aside. “That’s better!”
“I can’t marry you after writing that book!” she said, softening the blow, however, by clinging rather closer.
“You not only can, but must, if I have to drag you to the altar! How else, pray, is my character to be re-established?”
She considered this, and was suddenly struck by an inspiration. She raised her head, and said: “Sylvester! I know the very thing to do! I will write a book about you, making you the hero!”
“No, thank you, darling!” he replied with great firmness.
“Well, how would it be if I wrote a sequel to The Lost Heir, and made Ugolino become quite steeped ininfamy, and end up by perishing on the scaffold?”
“Good God! Sparrow, you are, without exception, the most incorrigible little wretch that ever drew breath! No!”
“But then everyone would know he couldn’t be you!” she pointed out. “Particularly if I dedicated it to you—which I could do with perfect propriety, you know, if I were just to subscribe myself The Author.”
“Now, that is a splendid thought!” he said. “One of those pompous epistles, with my name and style set out in large print at the head, followed by My Lord Duke—which you are so fond of calling me—and then by several pages interlarded with a great many Your Graces, and such encomiums as may occur to you, and—”
“None would occur to me! I should have to rack my brain for weeks to think of anything to say of you except that you are odiously arrogant, and—”
“Don’t you dare to call me arrogant! If ever I had any arrogance at all—which I deny!—how much could I possibly have left after having been ridden over rough-shod by you and Thomas, do you imagine?” He stopped, and turned his head towards the door, listening. “And that, if I mistake not, is Thomas! I think, don’t you, Sparrow, that he deserves to be the first to offer us his felicitations? He did try so hard to bring us about!” He went to the door, and opened it, to find Tom, who had just been admitted into the house, about to mount the stairs. “Thomas, come into the library! I have something of an interesting nature to disclose to you!” He added, as his eyes alighted on the tight posy of flowers in Tom’s hand: “Now, what’s all this, pray?”
“Oh, nothing!” Tom replied, blushing, but very off-hand. “I chanced to see them, and thought her grace might like to have them. She was saying last night that she missed the spring flowers at Chance, you know.”
“Oh, indeed! Dangling after my mother, are you? Well, don’t think I’ll have you for a father-in-law, for I won’t!”
“I don’t think that is at all a proper way to speak of her grace,” said Tom, with dignity.
“You are very right!” approved Phoebe, as he came into the room. “And the flowers are a very pretty attention: exactly what Mrs. Orde would say you ought to do!”
“Well, that’s what I—Oh, by Jove!” Thomas exclaimed, looking from Phoebe to Sylvester in eager inquiry.
“Yes, that’s it,” said Sylvester.
“Oh, that’s famous!” Tom declared, shaking him warmly by the hand. “I never was more glad of anything! After you were such a goose, too, Phoebe! I wish you excessively happy, both of you!” He then hugged Phoebe, recommended her to learn how to conduct herself with propriety, and said, with rare tact, that he would take himself off at once.
“You will find her in her drawing-room,” said Sylvester kindly. “But you would be better employed, let me remind you, in making your peace with Lady Ingham!”
“Yes, I shall do so, of course, but later, because she don’t like morning-callers above half,” replied Tom.
“What you mean,” retorted Sylvester, “is that your nerves are losing their steel! Tell her that you left me on the point of writing to Lord Marlow, to request his permission to marry his daughter, and fear nothing! She’ll fall on your neck!”
“I say, that’s a dashed good notion!” exclaimed Tom, his brow clearing. “I think, if you’ve no objection, I will tell her that!”
“Do!” said Sylvester cordially, and went back into the library, to find himself being balefully regarded by his love.
“Of all the arrogant things I’ve heard you say—”
“My lord Duke!” interpolated Sylvester.
“—that remark was the most insufferable!” declared Phoebe. “What makes you so sure Grandmama will be pleased, pray?”
“Well, what else am I to think, when it was she who proposed the match to me?” he countered, his eyes full of laughter.
“Grandmama?”
“You absurd infant, who do you suppose sent me down to Austerby?”
“You mean to tell me you came at Grandmama’s bidding?”
“Yes, but with the utmost reluctance!” he pleaded outrageously.
“Oh—! Then—then when you sent me to her—Sylvester, you are atrocious!”
“No, no!” he said hastily, taking her in his arms again. He then, with great presence of mind, put a stop to any further recriminations by kissing her; and his indignant betrothed, apparently feeling that he was too deeply sunk in depravity to be reclaimable, abandoned (for the time being, at all events) any further attempt to bring him to a sense of his iniquity.