It is thus she gives in.
"And when," asks Stafford, half an hour later, all the retrospective confessions and disclosures having taken some time to get through,—"when shall I install a mistress in the capacious but exceedingly gloomy abode my ancestors so unkindly left to me?"
"Do not even think of such a thing for ever so long. Perhaps next summer I may——"
"Oh, nonsense! Why not say this time ten years?"
"But at present my thoughts are full of my dear Molly. Ah! when shall I see her as happy as—as—I am?"
Here Sir Penthony, moved by a sense of duty and a knowledge of the fitness of things, instantly kisses her again.
He has barely performed this necessary act when the redoubtable Charles puts his head in at the door and says:
"The carriage is waiting, my lady."
"Very good," returns Lady Stafford, who, according to Charles's version of the affair, a few hours later, is as "red as a peony." "You will stay here, Penthony,"—murmuring his name with a grace and a sweet hesitation quite irresistible,—"while I go and make ready for our drive."