And the Duke, still irresolute, still longing to procrastinate, gave a final sigh of sullen resignation.
'Very well!' he said. 'Since you wish it——'
'I do,' she replied solemnly. 'I do wish it most earnestly, most sincerely. You will accept, François?'
'Yes.'
'You promise?'
Again he hesitated. Then, as the footsteps halted outside the door and Marguerite almost squeezed the breath out of his body with the pressure of her young strong arms, he said reluctantly: 'I promise!' Then, immediately—for fear he should be held strictly to his word—he added quickly: 'On one condition.'
'What is that?' she asked.
'That I am not asked to plight my troth to the wench till after I have seen her; for I herewith do swear most solemnly that I would repudiate her at the eleventh hour—aye, at the very foot of the altar steps, if any engagement is entered into in my name to which I have not willingly subscribed.'
This time he spoke so solemnly and with such unwonted decision that Marguerite thought it best to give way. At the back of her over-quick mind she knew that by hook or by crook she would presently devise a plan which would reconcile his wishes to her own.
'Very well,' she said after an almost imperceptible moment of hesitation. 'It shall be as you say.'