Kathleen simply observed, "My dear lord, I thank you most unfeignedly for this kind consideration on your part."
The Marquis made no reply; but taking the delicate white hand of the Irish girl, as he lay pillowed upon her palpitating breast, he gently slipped upon one of her taper fingers a ring of immense value.
He then squeezed her hand to enjoin silence; and this act was not perceived by the other ladies, who were too busily employed in feasting their eyes upon the Bank-notes to pay attention to aught beside.
"Come—fill the glasses!" suddenly exclaimed the Marquis, after a short pause: "I feel that my strength is failing me fast—the sand of my life's hour-glass is running rapidly away!"
The French girl—to whose mind there was something peculiarly heroical and romantic in the conduct of the Marquis—hastened to obey the order which had been specially addressed to her; and the sparkling juice of Epernay again moistened the parched throat of the dying man, and also enhanced the carnation tints upon the cheeks of the five youthful beauties.
"And now, my charmers," said the nobleman, addressing himself to the French and Spanish women, "gratify me by dancing some pleasing and voluptuous measure,—while you, my loves," he added, turning his glazing eyes upon the Scotch and English girls, "play a delicious strain,—so that my spirit may ebb away amidst the soothing ecstacies of the blissful scene!"
The Marquis spoke in a faint and tremulous voice, for he felt himself growing every moment weaker and weaker; and his head now lay, heavy and motionless, upon the bosom of the Irish girl, whose warm and polished arm was thrown around him.
The Scotch and English girls hastened to place themselves, the former before a splendid harp, and the latter at a pianoforte, the magnificent tones of which had never failed to excite the admiration of all who ever heard them.
Then the French and Spanish women commenced a slow, languishing, and voluptuous dance, the evolutions of which were well adapted to display the fine proportions of their half-naked forms.
A smile relaxed the features of the dying man; and his glances followed the movements of those foreign girls who vied with each other in assuming the most lascivious attitudes.