"No—not yet. He was persuading me just now but I've not consented."
"Then don't. He's a bad, a wicked man I feel sure. Have nothing to do with him."
"I swear to you I've no desire. But a penniless scribbler has no choice if he has to live—that is if life be worth living, which I sometimes doubt."
"You shouldn't think like that. It's cowardly. A man should fight his way through the world. Now a woman...."
"She's armed better than a man. Her charm—her beauty—her wit. Nature bestows on her all conquering weapons."
"Which she as often as not misuses and turns against herself. But Mr. Vane," the note of bitterness had vanished; her voice was now earnest, almost grave, "you weren't despondent when you were facing an angry mob after doing me a service I shall never forget. You underrate yourself."
"Oh, I admit that when alone I'm like a boat at the mercy of wind and wave, but with some one to inspire—to guide—bah, 'tis useless talking of the unattainable."
Vane uttered the last words in a reckless tone and with a shrug of the shoulders. His eyes gazed yearningly, despairingly into hers, and there had never been a time in Lavinia's life when she was less able to withstand a wave of heartfelt emotion.
Her nerves at that moment were terribly unstrung. She had had a most exhausting day lasting from early dawn. The strain of the trying interview at Twickenham; the anxious ordeal of singing before such supreme judges as she deemed them; the jubilation of success and the praise they had bestowed upon her, and Gay's promises as to her future had turned her brain for the time being. Then the episode of the highwayman—that in itself was sufficiently disturbing.
As a matter of fact the girl's strength was ebbing fast when she reached Moor Fields, but she nerved herself to go on, confident of her reward in relieving the young author's anxiety and his joy at the success—up to a point—of her errand. Things had not quite turned out as she had pictured them. The sight of the coarse speeched, malevolent-looking man with his squinting eye and unhealthy complexion, brought back the scene of the night before which she would willingly have forgotten, and down went her spirits to zero.