‘I hope she will not know of my crash until she has married.’
‘She will not, unless you tell her.’
‘And when do you think she will be married?’
‘When you please.’
‘Cher ami! point de moquerie!’
‘By Jove, I am quite serious,’ exclaimed the Count. ‘I am as certain that you will marry her as that we are in this damned spunging-house.’
‘Nonsense!’
‘The very finest sense in the world. If you will not marry her, I will myself, for I am resolved that good Montfort shall not. It shall never be said that I interfered without a result. Why, if she were to marry Montfort now, it would ruin my character. To marry Montfort after all my trouble: dining with that good Temple, and opening the mind of that little Grandison, and talking fine things to that good duchess; it would be a failure.’
‘What an odd fellow you are, Mirabel!’ ‘Of course! Would you have me like other people and not odd? We will drink la belle Henriette! Fill up! You will be my friend when you are married, eh? Mon Armine, excellent garçon! How we shall laugh some day; and then this dinner, this dinner will be the best dinner we ever had!’
‘But why do you think there is the slightest hope of Henrietta not marrying Montfort?’