“I’ve no doubt I shall be vastly entertained,” said Sir Anthony.
“Oh, it’s very edifying, sir, but it’s not what the life of my Lady Fanshawe should be.”
“Who made you judge of that, child?”
She laughed. “You’re infatuated, sir. But I’m not respectable, give you my word. In boy’s clothes I’ve kept a gaming-house with my father; I’ve escaped out of windows and up chimneys; I’ve travelled in the tail of an army not English; I’ve played a dozen parts, and — well, it has been necessary for me often to carry a pistol in my pocket.”
Sir Anthony’s head was turned towards her. “My dear, will you never realise that I adore you?”
She looked down at her bridle hand; she was shaken and blushing like any silly chit, forsooth! “It was not my ambition to make you admire me by telling you those things, sir.”
“No, egad, you hoped to make me draw back. I believe you don’t appreciate yourself in the least.”
It was very true; she had none of her father’s conceit; she had never troubled to think about herself at all. She raised puzzled eyes. “I don’t know how it is, Tony, but you seem to think me something wonderful, and indeed I am not.”
“I won’t weary you with my reasons for holding to that opinion,” said Sir Anthony, amused. “Two will suffice. I have never seen you betray fear; I have never seen you lose your head. I don’t believe you’ve done so.”
Prudence accepted this; it seemed just. “No, ’tis as Robin says: I’ve a maddening lack of imagination. The old gentleman tells me it is my mother in me, that I can never be in a flutter.”