She gave nothing away in her expression, but she knew that he had very nearly the full sum of it.
There fell a silence. “Prudence ...” Sir Anthony repeated and smiled. “I don’t think you were very well named, child.” He looked down at her, and there was a light in his eyes she had never seen there before. “Will you marry me?” he said simply.
Now at last there came surprise into her face, on a wave of colour. She rose swiftly to her feet, and stood staring. “Sir, I have to suppose — you jest!”
“It is no jest.”
“You ask a nameless woman, an adventuress to marry you? One who had lied to you, and tricked you! And you say it is no jest?”
“My dear, you have never tricked me,” he said, amused.
“I tried to do so.”
“I wish you would call me Tony,” he complained.
She had a tiny suspicion she was being punished. Sure, the fine gentleman would never ask her to be his wife in all seriousness. “You have the right to your revenge, sir,” she said stiffly.
He came round the corner of the table, and took one of her hands in his. She let it lie there resistless. “Child, have you still so little faith in me?” he asked. “I offer you all my worldly goods, and the protection of my name, and you call it a jest.”