‘You will make up for it now.’
‘I wish I may; but, bless me, Phœbe, she is a perfect little nun, and what is she to do with a graceless dog like me?’
‘You will see,’ said Phœbe, smiling.
‘What do you think, then?’ he demanded, in some alarm. ‘You know I can’t take to the pious tack. Will nothing else satisfy her?’
‘You are not the same as you were. You don’t know what will happen to you yet,’ said Phœbe, playfully.
‘The carriage is ready, ma’am; my lady is waiting,’ said a warning voice.
‘I say,’ quoth Mervyn, intercepting her, ‘not a word to my lady. It is all conditional, you understand—only that I may ask again, in a year, or some such infernal time, if I am I don’t know what—but they do, I suppose.’
‘Perhaps you will by that time. Dear Mervyn, I am sorry, but I must go, or Augusta will be coming here.’
He made a ludicrous gesture of shrinking horror, but still detained her to whisper, ‘You’ll meet her at Moorcroft; they will have her for the Forest to-do.’
Phœbe signed her extreme satisfaction, and ran away.