I can't imagine how it's going to end, as her people will never let her marry him. Possibly, if "ma" Burke were to persuade the Senator to settle a large sum on her—but that's wild, even if Gunton would consent. I can imagine what a roar he'd give if such a thing were proposed. He'll insist on having her on his own terms. As if his insisting would do any good!
The last thing she said to me was: "Do you know when we became engaged? Listen! It was the first time we met—after three hours. After one hour he made me insult the men who came up to claim dances. After two hours he made me say, 'I love you.' After three hours—it was on the way down to my carriage—he asked me to come into the little reception-room by the entrance. And he closed the door and caught me in his arms and kissed me. 'That makes you my wife,' he said in a dreadful voice—oh, it was—magnifique!—and he said, 'Do you understand?' And"—she smiled ravishingly and nodded her head—"I understood."
I shan't sleep a wink to-night.
January 20. I wish they hadn't told me. If ever a man loves me and wants to win me he must be—well, perhaps not exactly that, but certainly not tame. I'm not a bit like Nadeshda, but I do hate the tame sort. I know what's the matter with me now. Yes, I wish they hadn't told me.
January 21. Robert and Nadeshda have told "ma" Burke. She is—delighted! "I never heard of the like," she said to me all in a quiver. "I wish I'd known there were such things. I reckon I'd 'a' made my Tom cut a few capers before he got me." And then she laughed until she cried. It certainly was droll to picture "pa" capering in the Robert-Nadeshda fashion.
She went to the embassy and told Nadeshda's sister, Madame l'Ambassadrice. "She let on as if she was just tickled to death," she reported to me a few minutes after she returned. "And when I told her that we—Tom and I—would do handsomely by Nadeshda as soon as they were married she had tears in her eyes. But I don't trust her—nor any other foreigner."
"Not even Nadeshda?"
"Ma" nodded knowingly. "I reckon Bob'll keep her on the chalk," she replied. "He's started right, and in marriage, as in everything else, it's all in the start."
January 22. Nadeshda asked Mrs. Burke to give a big costume ball, but I sat on it hard. "I don't think you want to do that, Mrs. Burke," said I, when she proposed it to me. "If this were New York it wouldn't matter so much, though I don't think really nice people with means do that sort of thing there. Here I'm afraid it'd make you very unpopular."
"Do you think so?" said she. "Now, I'd 'a' said it was just the sort of foolishness these people'd like."