CHAPTER IX.
TREATING OF LOVERS AND FRIENDS.
CALCUTTA, April ye 28th.
To continue the history, in which I know my dearest Amelia is most painfully interested, I returned to my own chamber after the Captain’s departure, and did my best to comply with his desire, though with little faith, I fear, in the possibility of obtaining an answer to my prayers. For indeed, Amelia, what plan could be devised whereby might be satisfied not only my papa’s punctilio and Captain Colquhoun’s honour, but also the prying eagerness of the scandal-mongers of this place? I told myself that there could be none, and endeavoured to bring my mind into a state of resignation—a task that was rendered far harder by the recollections of Mr Fraser that had persisted in forcing themselves upon me all morning. For this is the worst of my misfortunes, that I can’t fail to perceive in the Captain a nobler spirit and a more obliging disposition than in Fraser, and yet (a plague on Sylvia Freyne’s perversity!) I love the meaner man and not the greater. I scolded myself for this preference. I sought to reason myself out of it, but all in vain, for the whole time I knew that if by some miracle Fraser should return at that very hour, and declare his repentance by the smallest word, or even with a look—aye, perhaps without even that—I should forgive him and love him, not better, that were impossible, but with a far more respectful affection than before. I am fully sensible that many writers, and in especial the ingenious Mr Richardson, would counsel me that ’twas my duty to resist a wilful passion of this sort, and endeavour to uproot it, and I should have hoped to do so, had time been allowed me. ’Tis the entering on new and all-important duties with a mind thus preoccupied that I dread, for fear lest, after all, my efforts should fail. “You can but try,” says everybody; but, my dear, it seems to me an extraordinary grave thing to make this sort of experiment, as I may say, in our lives, whereof we have but one apiece, whether to be gained or lost. For if we lose, what then, Amelia?
Spending my morning in reflections of this sort, my dearest girl will readily guess that when the hour for tiffing arrived I was in no state to make a public appearance. Sending Marianna to beg Mrs Freyne to excuse me from attending her at the meal, I turned over on my couch, and sought to cool my hot face with Hungary water. While thus occupied, in comes my papa.
“What, miss, sullen?” he said angrily, seeing me all in a heap on the couch, with my hair about my face and my cap awry.
“Indeed, indeed, sir,” I cried, rising from the couch and falling on my knees before him, “I am trying to mould my mind to your will, believe me. Only remember how your goodness has always indulged your girl in the past, and you’ll perceive how difficult she finds it to accommodate her behaviour to your present awful severity. Pray, sir, don’t think I regard it as ill deserved—I believe I know my faults—but bear with me for to-day, I beg of you.”
“You’re a strange unaccountable hussy,” says my papa, but not so harshly. “What do you want, miss, I should like to know? Well, cry your eyes out to-day, if you will have it so, but mind, no sulking to-morrow, on pain of my gravest displeasure.”
I heard him sigh impatiently as he went away, and (undutiful wretch! you’ll say) the sound rejoiced me, for I knew that whatever my stepmother’s arts had been, they had not availed to estrange my papa’s heart from his girl. My next visitor was Mrs Freyne herself, who came creeping in, with her finger to her lip, after my papa was gone back to his dufter-conna.
“So you’re to marry the Captain, miss?” she said in a half-whisper; “I hope you’re pleased with the prospect?”
I could not think of any answer to make, and she went on, “Now, miss, I know you’ve often taken it vastly unkind in me that I’ve chanced to disoblige you now and then, but I’ll assure you I en’t really ill-natured. I won’t see you drove into a distasteful marriage without offering you a hope of escape. What do you say to marrying a rich and handsome young gentleman that’s dying for you, instead of your solemn-faced, miserly old Scotchman?”
“Who’s the gentleman, if you please, madam?”
“As though you needed to ask! ’Tis Menotti, of course, with the most elegant residence and keeping the best company in Calcutta. Come, miss, a chitt from me will bring him here in ten minutes, and Padra Mapletoft with him, and you shall be married quietly in your chamber, with no fuss or confusion. Then you can go home with him at once if you please, or if you choose still to play the prude and torment the poor man, he’ll be content not to claim you until you’re reconciled to the notion. Here’s pen and ink, I see—shall I write?”
Now it may appear strange to my Amelia, but this proposition of Mrs Freyne’s went far to reconcile me to quite another notion than hers. ’Twas possible, then, to meet a worse fate than to be compelled to marry an excellent good man that one did not love—even to lay oneself under an eternal obligation of the same nature to a wicked person that one hated.
“I thank you, madam,” I said, “but if I must marry one or other of the gentlemen, I’ll choose the Captain.”
“Then you’re a fool,” says she, “to choose a poor beggarly captain of Company’s troops, with whom you may be grateful if you get a silk gown once in ten years, in preference to one that will load you with the finest jewels and richest stuffs that can be had. I wonder, miss, where the obliging disposition is, with which the gentlemen all credit you, when you can doom to despair an adorer that has worshipped you so long with the utmost devotion, and for no reason at all?”
“Indeed, madam, I have my reasons. Mr Menotti’s manner of life, his free language even in the company of ladies, and the indifferent esteem in which he is held by persons of honour, are sufficient reason for me.”
“Well,” says Mrs Freyne, as she left the room, “if you’ll do me the favour to look at yourself in the glass, miss, I think you’ll say that if Mr Menotti saw you now, your looks would be a sufficient reason for his not marrying you.”
“Ah,” I thought, “I see now why Mr Freyne has been urged on to force me into marrying the Captain, and why I have been sought to be privately dissuaded from the match. The Unknown was a true prophet.”
Now this slight encounter with Mrs Freyne proved a huge refreshment to me, so that I rose and summoned Marianna to dress my hair and help me change my gown. And, indeed, it was well that I did so, for before dinner, while it was still the heat of the day, I was told that Captain Colquhoun was again awaiting me in the saloon. I sought in vain to read his face when I entered the room, but as he led me to a seat I observed that he had a letter in his hand, which he presently opened, showing me that it had another enclosed in it.
“This pacquet,” madam, he said, “I found lying at my quarters when I returned from attending you this morning. I have brought it here because I fancied Miss Freyne might be able to help me respecting its contents.”
“Indeed, sir, I hope you’ll command me,” I said, out of measure astonished at such a sudden change of address.
“It comes,” he said, “from my cousin, the young gentleman that was staying with me a fortnight or so back. He begs me to deliver the enclosure to a lady of whom he is enamoured, and whom—so far as I can make out—he offended grievously before his departure, but he don’t mention the lady’s name. ’Tis a wild fantastical piece of writing, but he appears to consider I would know his mistress. Yesterday I would have returned him the paper, having no notion who the divinity might be, but this day has taught me more things than one. Have you any knowledge of the lady, madam?”
“Oh, sir,” all impatience, “pray, pray give it me.” The Captain laid the letter in my hand, but I delayed to open it, partly through a real misgiving, partly through a foolish readiness to tease myself by postponing my happiness. “It en’t directed to me, sir.”
“If you think it en’t designed for you, madam, pray hand it back to me with the seal unbroken,” says the Captain, in a severe voice of rebuke; but that I could not do. The horrid doubt that I might find the letter wrote after all to some other lady made my hands shake as I tore it open, but then I cried out with joy. Oh, the dear, blessed words, Amelia! fantastical, if you will (sure poor Fraser must have gathered ’em from a novel, as he did that unlucky expedient of his), but for all that the sweetest, the most charming that ever assured the fearful heart of a poor creature that had sad cause to mistrust her lover. I copy them for my dear friend:—
“To the incomparable Mrs SYLVIA FREYNE.
“If, madam, you deign to permit your eyes to rest upon the lines which the wretch who now addresses himself to you has dared to trace, it may perhaps serve to mitigate your just resentments when you learn that ever since he parted from you he has been a prey to the pangs of that remorse and contrition which is properly his lot. ’Tis true, he quitted your presence with an air of hardihood and bravado, as tho’ he had the effrontery to believe that he might remain unscathed by those arrows which had been planted in his guilty heart by your reproof of him, and this tho’ the wounds they caused (which have never ceased to throb and smart) were even then beginning to fester. The suffering wretch has no art to alleviate his pains, and in his despair he throws himself at the feet of the righteously offended charmer, to ask whether she who inflicted the hurts will be so divinely obliging as to chase ’em away. That the punishment is merited he dares not deny (yet not with such an affectation of humility as might seem to seek to disarm the just wrath of the lady to whom he applies himself), but will Miss Freyne’s tender heart permit her to use her suppliant as the savages of the Virginias their enemies—viz., to set ’em up and shoot arrows into them, and leave them to expire in their agony? Since quitting Calcutta, the miserable object of her displeasure has failed to enjoy a moment of ease from the torment of these cruel barbs in his vitals, and now, his vessel being forced by the stress of a storm to seek shelter in the port of Vizagapatnam, he gazes across the raging billows in the direction of the city that holds his mistress, and longs for the power of throwing himself in reality at her feet, where he might demand pardon too urgently to be withstood, and receive the assurance of his felicity from the kindest lips in the world. But honour draws him back to Madrass, for his orders were strict against lingering on the road, and the lady he ventures to adore would be the last to desire to lure him away from his duty. Won’t the amiable Sylvia grant her Fraser a word of kindness, whether traced by her own fair hand, or confided to the mediation of his kinsman, that may salve his wounds and send him victorious to fight his nation’s battles?
“P.S.—Dearest madam, I love you with all my heart and better than my life. Forgive my unlucky trickery, and also my cursed rudeness, and rejoice your most humble and devoted servant,
C. FRASER.”
My happy tears fell fast (indeed I could not restrain ’em), on this charming, charming post-scriptum. “Oh, sir,” I cried to the Captain, “how shall I ever thank you for handing me this dear, this affecting letter?” But no sooner were the words out of my mouth (as they say) than I remembered, what my foolish ecstasy had made me forget, the present posture of my affairs. “Dear sir,” I said, “pray forgive me. What must you think of me?”
“Nay, madam,” was the Captain’s reply, “’tis of my cousin Fraser I am thinking. Sure the lad should have been named Jacob, and not Colvin, for he and his have supplanted me these two times.”
“Oh, sir,” I said, “you do me wrong, and your cousin also. See,” and I made as though to tear up Mr Fraser’s letter, but could not bring myself to do it, and only crushed it in my hand, “this late though happy repentance on his part can make no difference to the engagement into which I entered with you this morning. My dear Captain Colquhoun won’t grudge me, I’m sure, the happiness of knowing that I had misjudged one so nearly related to him, but that pleasure is in itself sufficient. I am yours, sir, and it shall be my constant effort, I’ll assure you, that what you have just witnessed shall never be recalled to your mind.”
“Nay, madam,” said he again, with what Charlotte and I have been used to call his wooden smile (oh, my dear, how the memory of our pert jests concerning the noblest of men shames me now!) “when Jacob hath gained both the birthright and the promise, what remains for poor Esau but to flee into the wilderness from the face of his brother?”
“Dear sir, what do you purpose doing?” I cried in great alarm.
“Nothing that need terrify you, madam; merely to withdraw my pretensions in favour of him who has the best right to your hand, since for him your heart goes with it, and to endeavour to find my happiness in that of the lady I most admire and of the man who must needs be worthy since Miss Freyne prefers him to so high a place in her esteem.”
“Sure, dear sir, you must be a philosopher?”
“I am more concerned to be a Christian, madam. But,” seeing that I was much abashed, “don’t let my sour humour put Miss Freyne out of countenance. Be assured, madam, that when I leave you ’twill be to set my wits at work to devise a means of escape from this situation that shall satisfy both Mr Freyne’s punctilio and yours, and if I find a chance to throw in a good word for your Fraser, it shan’t be lost.”
“Oh, sir, dear sir, if there was anything I could do!”
“There’s nothing, madam. Miss Freyne’s kind heart must not concern itself with the old man’s misfortunes. ‘Serves the old fool right for falling in love at his age!’ the world will say, but Alexander Colquhoun himself thinks no shame of it, and he is tough enough to bear the consequences without whimpering. Nay, madam, I protest you honour me too much——”
For when he stooped to kiss my hand, I had seized his and kissed it instead. And, indeed, Amelia, even now that I am cool, I will defend my hasty action to you or any other person. Would not you have been proud to kiss the hand of Sir Charles Grandison? and though you may smile to think that I should have discovered the features of that great and good man in a poor captain of Company’s troops, yet I defy you to produce any person of this age whose disposition will more nearly approach that of Mr Richardson’s noblest and most elevated character.
As I returned to my own chamber a little later, I met my papa.
“Well, miss, and where’s the Captain?” he asked me.
“I believe he’s gone back to his quarters, sir.”
“And what’s settled, hey?”
“I think the Captain will wait upon you to-morrow morning, sir.”
“Pray, miss, why don’t you answer my question? Is all right between you and the Captain?”
“I—I don’t know, sir,” and I burst into tears, which displeased my papa so much that he ordered me to go to my chamber, and not to show myself in his sight for the rest of the day.
The remainder of the afternoon I spent in scribbling these pages to my Amelia, until my eyes ached so badly I could write no more, and also (I’ll confess it) in reading again and again the dear delightful letter that assured me of Fraser’s penitence and faithfulness. My beloved girl will wonder that I could take so much pleasure in that which had so sadly disobliged the dear kind gentleman I had seen so lately, and indeed I was ashamed of my own delight, and astonished at it. I put the letter in my bosom at last, and crept like a mouse into the saloon, which was not lighted, since Mrs Freyne was spending the evening abroad. But outside in the varanda sat my papa, meditating, I fear, on the humours of his troublesome girl, and though he had forbid me his presence I could not endure not to be near him. Seated, therefore, on the straw matting (this is used instead of a carpet), close to the open door that leads on the varanda, and sheltered by the antiporta, I ventured to watch him, with all the love and reverence in my gaze that ought to, and does, fill my grateful heart on the slightest thought of him. He appeared troubled, and I knew that he felt the want of the Captain’s company, who is so often with him of an evening, but before very long Mr Dash was announced, and the two gentlemen sent for their hookers[01] (have I said that these are a strange sort of tobacco-pipe, with a vessel of water and a long tube like a serpent and all manner of outlandish additions belonging to ’em?) and began to smoke.
“I looked in at the Captain’s quarters as I passed,” says Mr Dash after a while, “thinking he would be coming to pass the evening with you, sir.”
“And you found him abroad?”
“No, sir, but he was too busy to stir a foot. Questionless that sergeant of his has been in trouble again, and is condemned to pass the night in the black hole for brawling, after smuggling a jar or two of arrack into the guard-room, and the Captain’s preparing a new scheme for his reformation.”
I knew well what Mr Dash meant, for Captain Colquhoun had often told me of this man, who is an extraordinary good soldier so long as he can resist the influence of strong liquors, and had even requested my opinion on the possibility of depriving him altogether of the indulgence, which in this climate is so often abused; but I did not believe that ’twas this matter which was exercising the Captain’s mind this evening. I sat listening while my papa and Mr Dash spoke of the overbearing and threatening carriage of the new Soubah towards us, and wondered whether he would permit himself to be appeased by the genteel congratulatory letter sent him by the President as soon as he was formally proclaimed in Calcutta. My papa made sure that all would be well, since the Nabob had received the letter favourably, and shown no resentment for the injurious treatment of his messenger in the matter of Kissendasseat, but Mr Dash pointed out that Surajah Dowlah had already seized and imprisoned one of his rivals, namely, Gosseta Begum, his uncle’s widow, and was commonly reported to be about to march against t’other, his cousin the Purranea Nabob, so that he was destroying his enemies one by one, “and after Sucajunk,” says the young gentleman, “our turn will come.”
My papa made some jesting answer to the effect that Mr Dash had taken the infection of Captain Colquhoun’s apprehensions, and after that I believe I must have fallen asleep where I was crouched, for I woke up with a great start and my heart thumping, to find Mr Dash gone and Mr Menotti shouting on the varanda, while my papa sought to quiet him.
“I tell you, sir,” he cried, “I found one of Omy Chund’s peons (and I believe ’twas Juggermunt Sing, their Jemmautdar and the biggest rascal of ’em all, but I could not make sure in the darkness) lurking in your grounds, with a billet upon him addressed to Miss.”
“Sure the fellow must be the biggest fool of ’em all if he handed the chitt to you, sir, in mistake for Miss,” says my papa.
“Sir,” says Mr Menotti, with a very haughty air, “I addressed myself to the rogue with authority, demanding what he was doing in such a place.”
“Ah, and what did you say the place was, sir, by the bye?”
“Why, sir, the great thicket opposite Miss’s window.”
“Indeed, sir! and may I ask what you was doing in such a place?”
I thought Mr Menotti seemed confounded for a moment, but he answered quickly, with a monstrous effrontery, “Why, sir, I saw the fellow sneaking into the shadow of the thicket, and thinking I knew his villainous countenance, my concern for your interests induced me to follow him. Recognising me as an acquaintance of his master’s, he was so imprudent as to declare his errand, when my regard for Miss’s honour at once put me upon getting hold of the letter he carried, which I did by promising to deliver it to the proper person. The wicked wretch had been haunting the spot for hours without being able to have speech of Miss, and being a simple sort of fellow, one of those Sykes[02] from the Mogul’s dominions, and not a Gentoo, he was easily persuaded to deliver it up.”
“Sir, your concern for my honour and my family’s does prodigious credit to the goodness of your heart. Did you dismiss the fellow in peace?”
“Why, no, sir; the billet once in my hands, it was no longer needful to dissemble the fury that possessed me, passing all bounds when I perceived the nature of the vile piece. For seeing that the letter was from the hand of the abandoned deceiver, whose shameless attempts have twice been frustrated by your vigilance, and that it contained a condolence with Miss on the tyranny by which you, sir, was endeavouring to force her into marriage with an elderly suitor, and an invitation to her to meet the writer on that spot at a certain hour this very night, with a view to eloping with him, I fell upon the messenger in my rage, and kicked and cuffed him so soundly that he may be thankful to have escaped with his life.”
“Sir, you lay me under an ever-increasing debt of obligation. The Unknown must be but new at his work to send his letter open and unfolded.”
“Indeed, sir, it was folded and sealed, but my transports of indignation would not permit me to hand the vile scrawl to Miss.”
“Nor to me neither, I suppose, sir? Perhaps, having perused it at your leisure, you’ll now pass it on to me.”
“Why, sir, I tore it into a thousand pieces and scattered ’em abroad. Would you have it pollute the sight of any but myself?”
“Sir,” says my papa, with his most awful air of severity, “I would have you act as a person of honour, if it be in your power. I have such confidence in my daughter that I’m persuaded, had the billet reached her, it would be in my hands at this moment. You have thought fit, not only to open and read, but to destroy, a letter addressed to a lady with whose actions you have not the smallest concern, and by alarming the messenger, to prevent our having any hope of catching his villainous principal in his own trap. You’ll oblige me excessively if you’ll inform your friend Omy Chund that my gardens en’t designed as lurking-places for his peons, and you’ll double the obligation by taking the same information to heart for the future with regard to yourself. I will wish you a very good evening, sir.”
Never, Amelia, have I seen a person look so foolishly confounded as Mr Menotti when my papa bowed him off the varanda, and called to the servants to conduct him to the gate. But oh, my dear, how fearful is this proof that the Unknown has not yet ceased his wicked attempts upon the reputation of your poor friend! Observe how quickly the news of my papa’s pressing on me the Captain’s suit has reached him (though I might give a guess as to the means, since Marianna tells me that Mrs Freyne’s iya Bowanny was despatched to the Mother of Cosmetiques this morning on an errand for some lipsalve), and how promptly the vile wretch acts. My mind is filled with terror by these continual plots against my peace (for what, pray, was Mr Menotti doing in the garden?). The only ray of hope that I can see is the chance that the second vile wretch, desiring to better his position with my papa, may have invented the whole affair. But this hope is destroyed by what I hear this morning (for I have not added a new date, since I desired to keep all the events of yesterday together), that Mr Menotti has quarrelled with his friend Omy Chund, and that the two, each threatening to betray some damaging fact that was come to his knowledge about the other, were with difficulty separated without bloodshed by the bystanders.
April ye 29th.
Rising at my usual hour this morning, I dressed myself very carefully, putting on the carnation-coloured ribbons that are always my papa’s favourites, and a gown of printed muslin that he had brought me himself from Dacca. So fearful was I of meeting Mr Freyne, or at least of displeasing him by anything in my carriage or appearance, that I loitered before the mirror, altering a bow here and a knot there, until the bearer (who is as we should say Mr Freyne’s gentleman, but black, of course) came to tell Marianna that his master was waiting. Then you will guess, Amelia, how I hurried out, but slackened my haste as I approached my papa, my feet almost refusing to carry me, such was my state of apprehension. What was my relief when Mr Freyne saluted me most kindly and pleasantly, and bade me pour him a dish of tea before it all became cold. My fears were almost vanished under the influence of my dear papa’s agreeable conversation, when (the meal being ended and the servants retired) he sent me cold all over with—
“I must make you a compliment on the state of your affairs, miss. What with your modesty and your reserves, you’ve brought ’em to a pretty pass!”
“Indeed, dear sir, pardon me—I can’t help it,” I stammered.
“I had the Captain here last night,” says my papa.
“Last night, sir? the Captain? and what—what—?”
“What was you thinking about, miss, to tell him you loved another?”
“I durst not deceive him, sir.”
“Do you know you’re a troublesome, humoursome baggage, miss? What do you think your whimsies have cost the poor Captain?” He threw a great parcel of papers into my lap. “There, take ’em, and see what they come to. On my life, I’m ashamed to touch ’em.”
I unrolled the papers. They were Indian bonds of great sums, three hundred and five hundred pounds, and the like. I sought to reckon up their value, as my papa bade me, but could not come at it in my confusion.
“Pray, sir, what’s all this money?” I said, trying to speak calmly.
“Why, that’s your ransom, miss, to deliver you from the Captain’s clutches, though why he should have to pay it puzzles me.”
“Sure, sir, you must be jesting, and yet it en’t like my papa to rally me on so sorrowful a subject.”
“Sorrowful indeed, miss. I would pay down myself that sum you hold if it would free me from the reproach of having brought so much misfortune upon a man that I esteem the very chiefest of my friends, when I thought only to do him good.”
“But, dear sir, is it I that have done him harm?”
“Yes, miss, you, and that long Scotch lad of yours, and the tattlers and scandal-mongers of this place, and I myself, as I said.”
“You terrify me, sir. What’s happened to the Captain?”
“Oh, nothing, miss,” says my papa; “only that he has been robbed of his mistress and a matter of five thousand pounds besides.”
“This money that’s here, sir?”
“Yes, miss; the sum he makes over to you to compensate you for breaking off his addresses.”
I was filled with horror. “But you would not dream of accepting it, sir?”
“Why, miss, I must; that’s the cursed part of the business. Say that the Captain breaks off his courtship, which is become the common talk of all Calcutta. Did you refuse him? Then the gossip was true, and you was bound by some earlier engagement, so as you durst not marry him. Did he withdraw from his suit? Then you may be assured that he had discovered some spot on the lady’s reputation. Did I put an end to the affair? Why then, I was aware of something improper, and as a person of honour, refused to permit my friend to sacrifice himself. The lady’s in the wrong, you see, however you take it.”
“But, sir, how can this horrid, this dreadful money make things better?”
“Why, just in this way, miss. The Captain came to me last night, and told me you had received his addresses with the dutiful acceptance I had prepared him to expect in you. ‘But presently,’ says he, ‘talking with Miss, I discovered that if she honoured me with her hand, I could not hope to make her as happy as a lady of her beauty and merits has a right to expect. To force myself upon so charming a creature without that assurance which I failed to obtain would be to inflict undeserved misery on her, and a richly merited remorse on myself, but I am sensible that I would do her only a less harm by withdrawing from my suit. As a testimony, then, of my regard for the lady’s worth, and a compensation to her for the breaking-off of the match, I desire to make over to you for her use the sum of five thousand pounds, to be settled strictly upon herself,[03] whomsoever she may marry, and I will take it kindly in you, sir, to allow her to exercise her own choice in that particular.’ That I promised him at once, for ’twas all I could do for him, and indeed he has found the only way out of the difficulty.”
“Oh, sir,” my voice was choked, “forgive me, but mayn’t it be said that the dear gentleman paid down the money sooner than marry me?”
“No, miss, it mayn’t; for what man in his senses would allow himself to be forced into paying down such a sum without a fight at the law? And having paid it, would he be likely to remain friendly with the lady and her family? or more, would he use his best efforts to marry her to a relation of his own?”
“Oh, sir!” This took me quite aback, as the sailors say.
“Yes, indeed, miss. There was an understood condition attached to the gift that if Mr Fraser should pay you his addresses, and they were agreeable to you, I should offer no objection to your marrying. I hadn’t been aware hitherto that I was such a tyrannical parent that ’twas necessary to buy my consent to my daughter’s marrying the man she had a fancy for, but I suppose I can bear the blame if it’s to pleasure the Captain. And now, miss, let me know your thoughts on the subject. Do you desire to marry the fellow?”
“Oh, sir!” again covering my burning face with my hands.
“Come, miss, there’s no need to play the prude with me, is there? You told me once you hated the gentleman; am I to understand that y