“Yes, but I don’t signify, any more than if I had been your brother.” A qualm seized him. “I suppose I ought not to do it,” he said, with a vague feeling of chivalry. “I don’t mind people calling me a libertine, but I’m damned if I’ll have them saying I took advantage of a chit not out of the schoolroom!”
Miss Wantage clasped her hands together in her lap, and said rather breathlessly: “Sherry, if you think I might suit, please — please do marry me, for I know I should like it above all things!”
“Yes, but you’ve no more notion of what it means than that sparrow,” said the Viscount bluntly. He thought this over for a moment, and added: “In fact, much less.”
“But I should like very much always to be with you, Sherry, because you are never cross with me, and I should enjoy such fun, and go to London, and see all the things I’ve only heard of, and go to parties, and balls, and not be scolded, or sent to that dreadful school, and — oh, Sherry, it wasn’t k-kind in you to put it into my head if you d-didn’t really mean it!”
The Viscount patted her shoulder in a perfunctory way, a slightly rueful grin quivering on his lips. Shatter-brained he might be, but the full implication of this artless speech was not lost on him. “Oh, lord!” he said.
Miss Wantage swallowed a sob, and said valiantly: “You were only funning. Of course I should have known that. I didn’t mean to tease you.”
“No, I wasn’t,” said his lordship. “Damme, why shouldn’t I marry you? I know you haven’t had time to fix your affections, but ten to one you never will, and in any event you won’t find me the sort of husband who’s for ever kicking up a dust over trifles. I shan’t interfere with your pleasures, as long as you keep ’em discreet, my dear. And you needn’t fear I shall be forcing my attentions on you. I told you I was done with love. A marriage of convenience, that’s what it will be! Dash it, it may not be as romantic as I dare say you’d have liked, but you can’t deny it will be more amusing than being a governess!”
Miss Wantage nodded fervently, her eyes like stars. “And I do think it is romantic,” she said.
“That’s because you know nothing about it,” replied Sherry cynically. “Never mind! You’ll enjoy cutting a dash in London, at all events.”
Miss Wantage agreed to this with enthusiasm. But the next instant a thought occurred to her which quenched the sparkle in her eyes. “Oh, how I wish we could! But they will never, never let us, Sherry!”