“How so?”
“Because, when a maiden chooseth steadily to say nay to your wooing, to follow her heels, and whine and beg, is a dog’s duty, not a man’s.”
“What!” exclaimed Alwyn, in a voice of great eagerness, “mean you to say that you have wooed Sibyll Warner as your wife?”
“Verily, yes!”
“And failed?”
“And failed.”
“Poor Marmaduke!”
“There is no ‘poor’ in the matter, Nick Alwyn,” returned Marmaduke, sturdily; “if a girl likes me, well; if not, there are too many others in the wide world for a young fellow to break his heart about one. Yet,” he added, after a short pause, and with a sigh,—“yet, if thou hast not seen her since she came to the court, thou wilt find her wondrously changed.”
“More’s the pity!” said Alwyn, reciprocating his friend’s sigh.
“I mean that she seems all the comelier for the court air. And beshrew me, I think the Lord Hastings, with his dulcet flatteries, hath made it a sort of frenzy for all the gallants to flock round her.”