“I am too young for you,” said Pen unsteadily. “I dare say you think I am amusing—in fact, I know you do, for you are for ever laughing at me—but you would very soon grow tired of laughing, and—and perhaps be sorry that you had married me.”
“I am never tired of laughing.”
“Please do not say any more!” she implored. “It has been such a splendid adventure until Piers came, and forced you to say what you did! I—I would rather that you didn’t say any more, Richard, if you please!”
He perceived that his careful strategy in allowing her to meet her old playfellow before declaring himself had been mistaken. There did not seem to be any way of explaining this. No doubt, he thought, she had from the outset regarded him in an avuncular light. He wondered how deeply her affections had been rooted in the dream-figure of Piers Luttrell, and, misreading her tears, feared that her heart had indeed suffered a severe wound. He wanted very much to catch her up in his arms, overbearing her resistance and her scruples, but her very trust in him set up a barrier between them. He said, with a shadow of a smile: “I have given myself a hard task, have I not?”
She did not understand him, and so said nothing. Not until Piers had shown her a shocked face, and Sir Richard had claimed her as his prospective wife, had she questioned her own heart. Sir Richard had been merely her delightful travelling companion, an immensely superior personage on whom one could place one’s dependence. The object of her journey had obsessed her thoughts to such a degree that she had never paused to ask herself whether the entrance into her life of a Corinthian had not altered the whole complexion of her adventure. But it had; and when she had encountered Piers, it had been suddenly borne in upon her that she did not care two pins for him. The Corinthian had ousted him from her mind and heart. Then Piers had turned the adventure into a faintly sordid intrigue, and Sir Richard had made his declaration, not because he had wanted to (for if he had, why should he have held his tongue till then?) but because honour had forced the words out of him. It was absurd to think that a man of fashion, nearing his thirtieth year, could have fallen head-over-ears in love with a miss scarcely out of the schoolroom, however easily the miss might have tumbled into love with him.
“Very well, Miss Creed,” said Sir Richard. “I will woo you in form, and according to all the dictates of convention.”
The ubiquitous waiter chose this moment to come into the parlour to clear the table. Turning to gaze out of the window, Miss Creed reflected that in a more perfect world no servant would intrude upon his legitimate business at unreasonable moments. While the waiter, who seemed from his intermittent sniffs to be suffering from a cold in the head, shuffled about the room, clattering plates and dishes together on a tray, she resolutely winked away another tear, and fixed her attention on a mongrel dog, scratching for fleas in the middle of the street. But this object of interest was presently sent scuttling to cover by the approach of a smart curricle drawn by a pair of fine bays, and driven by a young blood in a coat of white drab cloth, with as many as fifteen capes, and two tiers of pockets. A Belcher handkerchief protruded from an inner pocket, and the coat was flung open to display an astonishing view of a kerseymere waistcoat, woven in stripes of blue and yellow, and a cravat of white muslin spotted with black. A bouquet was stuck in a button-hole of the driving-coat, and a tall hat with a conical crown and an Allen brim was set at a rakish angle on the head of this exquisite.
The equipage drew up outside the George, and a small Tiger jumped down from the back of the curricle, and ran to the horses’ heads. The exquisite cast aside the rug that covered his legs, and alighted, permitting Miss Creed a glimpse of white corduroy breeches, and short boots with very long tops. He passed into the inn while she was still blinking at such a vision, and set up a shout for the landlord.
“Good gracious, sir, such an odd creature has arrived! I wish you could have seen him!” Pen exclaimed. “Only fancy! He has a blue-and-yellow striped waistcoat, and a spotted tie!”
“I wear them myself sometimes,” murmured Sir Richard apologetically.