"Well," she said lightly, "I suppose by and by I shall have to go in and cheer up my fiancé, but I shan't be sorry for a few days' holiday."
She told Marmaduke so also when she appeared, exquisite and dainty, declaring that, as she was useless at home, since his father, poor dear, could not even bear the sight of her for more than five minutes, she thought it would be a fine opportunity to see a little more of the place than she had hitherto been able to; and would Marmaduke tell her where to go.
The result of which innocent interrogatory being that in the full glory of a summer afternoon, the sea calm as a mill pond, Marmaduke found himself sitting in a boat as it drifted idly beneath the old red sandstone cliffs facing the North Sea with his arm round La Fantine's waist and a curious mixture of desire and disdain in his heart.
"You see, my dear boy," she was saying, "I dare say you think ill of me."
"I don't, I don't indeed!" he protested.
"Well, you did think ill of me," she continued, with a heavenly smile; "but I really have all the Christian virtues. That is the worst of it. I hate giving pain, or seeing people suffer. And I like doing my best for people, if I can. Now my proposition sounds rather impossible, but it really is quite feasible. I'm not going to talk about our feelings, Duke. We both of us remember last night, so we will leave them out of the question. But you are a young man, you have a future before you--that is to say, if you play your cards properly. You want to be a soldier----"
"I don't mean to be anything else," interrupted Marmaduke decidedly, "so your plan of my making money by dancing with you is out of the question."
"Not on six months' sick leave, under an assumed name? Now, Duke, listen and don't interrupt. If you and I join forces and run away from here, I will engage to get the money for your majority. I tell you any manager would advance two thousand on the fandango alone--or Jack Jardine could finance one half--as he always does, and I the other. Then you could join, get leave, disappear, have a real stunning six months with me--London, Paris, Vienna perhaps. You don't know what the life is like, Duke--and I'm not jealous or exacting. I like to amuse myself, and so should you."
He looked at her admiringly.
"What an imagination you have!" he said. "And you settle everything so quickly. You remind me----" And here the thought of Marrion Paul made him suddenly shift back to the thwart and begin to scull once more. "We are nearing the current," he said apologetically, "and she needs steering--and so do I!" he added, with a charming smile, "so go on, please, with your imaginations."