"Would I not give my fortune to win you?" he rejoined.
She continued for a long time afterwards to listen shyly and adorably to my lord's continued protestations, and when these became too violent, she rang for her tiring-wench and with many charmingly-timid blushes dismissed her adorer, promising to receive him again on the morrow.
He went away quite happy, vowing that he would gladly have given not only his entire fortune, but also his family estates and titles to Michael for enabling him to regain his freedom and to marry the most adorable woman in the whole world.
But Mistress Julia Peyton was not quite so content as all that. After my lord's departure, she went up to her sleeping room and exchanging her stiff brocade for a loose and easy wrap, she sat down in order to think various matters out.
Agitation and restlessness had gone from her, but not the frown of disapproval.
Her impetuous lover had been a fool, and Sir John a traitor to have allowed such monstrous promises to be made to Michael Kestyon. Surely her own kinsman should have known that her ardent love for my lord of Stowmaries consisted in the main of an overmastering desire to become a countess. Now with one hundred and twenty thousand pounds in Michael's hands and given that claimant's obstinate temperament and determination to carry his cause through, was there not a grave danger that the wretch would win his case after all and that my lord would presently have to yield his title and estates to the cousin whom he had so needlessly rendered rich?
It was monstrous, silly and childish! Sir John of course must have been well under the influence of liquor ere he allowed such a bargain, without realising the danger which threatened his kinswoman's ambitious desires.
She was mightily angry with Sir John, who should have been more shrewd, and could not understand how it was that so astute and so unscrupulous a schemer had overlooked the eventuality which she herself had foreseen in a flash.
The first fifty thousand, well and good!—Julia supposed that so vast a sum would certainly be required to bribe even a broken-down gentleman to enter into Ayloffe's dishonourable schemes.
But the further seventy thousand, was unnecessary, she felt sure of that and moreover it was dangerous.