Chapter One
“ DO NOT, I BEG OF YOU, MY LORD, SAY MORE!” uttered Miss Milborne, in imploring accents, slightly averting her lovely countenance, and clasping both hands at her bosom.
Her companion, a tall young gentleman who had gone romantically down upon one knee before her chair, appeared put out by this faltered request. “Damn it — I mean, dash it, Isabella!” he expostulated, correcting himself somewhat impatiently as the lady turned reproachful brown eyes upon him. “I haven’t started!”
“Do not!”
“But I’m about to offer for you!” said the Viscount, with more than a touch of asperity.
“I know,” replied the lady. “It is useless! Say no more, my lord!”
The Viscount arose from his knee, much chagrined. “I must say, Isabella, I think you might let a fellow speak!” he said crossly.
“I would spare you pain, my lord.”
“I wish you will stop talking in that damned theatrical way!” said the Viscount. “And don’t keep on calling me ‘my lord’, as though you hadn’t known me all your life!”
Miss Milborne flushed, and stiffened a little. It was perfectly true, since their estates marched together, that she had known the Viscount all her life, but a dazzling career as an acknowledged Beauty, with half the eligible young gentlemen in town at her feet, had accustomed her to a far more reverential mode of address than that favoured by her childhood’s playmate. In some dudgeon, she gazed coldly out of the window, while her suitor took a few hasty turns about the room.