"How shall it be?" and as he asked the question he jumped up and put his arm round her waist.
"Not like that, Mr. Fisker," she said, withdrawing herself. "It shall be in this way. You may consider yourself engaged to me."
"I'm the happiest man on this continent," he said, forgetting in his ecstasy that he was not in the United States.
"But if I find when I get to Francisco anything to induce me to change my mind, I shall change it. I like you very well, but I'm not going to take a leap in the dark, and I'm not going to marry a pig in a poke."
"There you're quite right," he said,—"quite right."
"You may give it out on board the ship that we're engaged, and I'll tell Madame Melmotte the same. She and Croll don't mean going any farther than New York."
"We needn't break our hearts about that;—need we?"
"It don't much signify. Well;—I'll go on with Mrs. Hurtle, if she'll have me."
"Too much delighted she'll be."
"And she shall be told we're engaged."