She shook her head with a very bewitching smile.
"And you would marry me?" he continued, hardly daring to believe it was not all a dream.
"You've never asked me," was the reply; but he was on the sofa at her side by this time, whispering his answer so closely in her ear, that I doubt if either heard it, while both knew pretty well what it meant; and though their subsequent conversation was carried on in a strange mixture of broken sentences, irrational expressions, and idiotic dumb show, it took less than ten minutes to arrive at a definite conclusion, entailing on Goldthred the necessity of immediate correspondence with his nearest relatives, and a visit to Doctors' Commons at no far distant date.
But, happy as he felt, breathing elixir, treading upon air, while walking home to dress for dinner, he found time for the purchase of such a beautiful fan as can hardly be got for money, and sent it forthwith to Kate Cremorne, with the following line written in pencil on his card—Il faut se faire valoir.
CHAPTER XXIX.
DAYBREAK.
It is only your cubs bred last season, not yet many months emancipated from the tender authority of the vixen, that hang to their homes, and run circling round the covert when disturbed by the diligence of their natural enemy, the hound. An old fox is a wild fox; and no sooner does he recognise the mellow note of the huntsman's cheer, the crack of the first whip's ponderous thong, than he is on foot and away, lively as a lark, with a defiant whisk of his brush, that means seven or eight miles as the crow flies, the exercise of all his speed during the chase, and all his craft to beat you at the finish. If you would have that brush on your chimney-piece, that sharp little nose on your kennel door, you must be pretty quick after him, for he wastes not a moment in hesitation, facing the open resolutely for his haven, crossing the fields like an arrow, wriggling through the fences like an eel.
Sir Henry Hallaton had been too often hunted not to take alarm at the first intelligence of real danger, therefore it was that he put the Channel between himself and his creditors without delay, knowing well from experience that a man never makes such good terms as when out of his enemy's reach; and so, trusting in the chapter of accidents which had often befriended him, smoked his cigar tranquilly in a pleasant little French town, while his family, his servants, his tradesmen, everybody connected with him, were paying, in distress, discomfort, and anxiety, the penalties this self-indulgent gentleman had incurred for his own gratification.
There could scarcely have been a greater contrast than the position of father and daughter when the crash first came.