‘I fear,’ said the young Duke with a smile, and in a soft sweet voice, ‘that you will never speak to me again, for I am a ruined man.’
A beam of gentle affection reprimanded him even for badinage on such a subject.
‘I really came here to buy up all your stock, but that gorgon, Lady de Courcy, captured me, and my ransom has sent me here free, but a beggar. I do not know a more ill-fated fellow than myself. Now, if you had only condescended to take me prisoner, I might have saved my money; for I should have kissed my chain.’
‘My chains, I fear, are neither very alluring nor very strong.’ She spoke with a thoughtful air, and he answered her only with his eye.
‘I must bear off something from your stall,’ he resumed in a more rapid and gayer tone, ‘and, as I cannot purchase you must present. Now for a gift!’
‘Choose!’
‘Yourself.’
‘Your Grace is really spoiling my sale. See! poor Lord Bagshot. What a valuable purchaser.’
‘Ah! Bag, my boy!’ said the Duke to a slang young nobleman whom he abhorred, but of whom he sometimes made a butt, ‘am I in your way? Here! take this, and this, and this, and give me your purse. I’ll pay Lady Aphrodite.’ And so the Duke again showered some sovereigns, and returned the shrunken silk to its defrauded owner, who stared, and would have remonstrated, but the Duke turned his back upon him.
‘There now,’ he continued to Lady Aphrodite; ‘there is two hundred per cent, profit for you. You are not half a marchande. I will stand here and be your shopman. Well, Annesley,’ said he, as that dignitary passed, ‘what will you buy? I advise you to get a place. ‘Pon my soul, ‘tis pleasant! Try Lady de Courcy. You know you are a favourite.’