Instead of replying at once, she bent down and picked up half-a-dozen cards from the floor, arranged them in the shape of a fan, and held them in front of her eyes.
"La," says she, "your lordship is too kind. Pray ascribe my blushes to my country breeding."
"Pah!" says I, "we have not the time for play-acting now. The moment is very ill-chosen."
"Oh, I grant you that," says she, "but as you will allow that it was none of my choosing, why should I forego the peculiar privileges that my sex have ever derived from this position? No, as I'm a woman, I will have this thing carried through in the most proper and approved manner. Ods lud, sir! what notions have you got! I will be coy if I choose, or haughty, or easy, or gracious, or mocking, or disdainful, just as my mood is and as I've a mind to be. Now then, my lord, down on to your noble knees, and pour forth your foolish speeches that are meant to be so grand, which you must forget in the middle, whereon you will descend out of a rather turgid poetry into a bald and somewhat blasphemous prose. For I will have your lordship to know that I will be wooed as a woman, else I will not be wooed at all. Down, down on to your knees, my lord, and up, up with your apostrophes."
"What a consummate folly is this," says I, "when at any moment we may be ta'en."
But the pretty little fool sat as demure as a mouse, not relaxing a lip or twitching an eyebrow, i' faith as adorable a picture of a person as any I've seen off a painted canvas. There was that tantalizing air about her which at once invited, yet forbade; that aroused that which it denied. I vow nothing could have been more taking than the sight of little Cynthia sitting there as straight as any arrow that ever Cupid shot, her knees and heels together, and her hands spread out with the palms turned down, and her dainty toes peeping from underneath her petticoat. Indeed, so was I worked on by her graces and airs that I was like to forget the grim pass in which we were involved. Nay, I gradually began to solicit her in a formal manner; a piece of behaviour that contributed as much to her whimsical pleasure as it did to my embarrassment. And when in accents of undying regard, I came to ask for her hand in exchange for my heart and fortune, she was so charmed with the natural fervour with which I did it, that she stopped me imperiously, in the middle of much passion, and says: "I would have your lordship go over again that splendid passage that you have just uttered, that hath the fine swearing and the great humility in it. I never heard anything choicer; Mr. Betterton never surpassed it."
And when I had humoured her as much as she wished and that was not until I was thirsty and hot, and she was somewhat weary of keeping the strict attitude that she thought best suited to receive my addresses in, says she: "I declare, sir, you have pleased me vastly. You are as good a suitor as any of them all. Mr. Waring never wooed me half so well. As for Mr. Stokes, and Colonel Regan, and Sir John Dufty, and my lord Viscount Brighouse, you compare very well with them too. You have not the fine brawny pease-and-bacon appearance of Sir John, it is true, nor is your voice so rich and noble as the Colonel's, begorra, nor is your nose so well curved as Mr. Stoke's, nor have you a pretty little lisp like my lord Viscount, but in the sum-total of your attributes you do very fairly well. And therefore as your lordship's fortune is so considerable, and you have already gained the approbation of my father, I think the only course open to me—Oh, Jack, listen! What in the name of heaven is that?"
"You may well ask," says I. "One, two, three, four, five probably or more, according to their boots on the stairs, gentlemen from Bow Street come to wait upon us."
"Oh, what shall we do!" says poor Cynthia, clapping her hands.
"Keep very calm, child, and carefully heed what I say. They will not molest you; I am their game. But I doubt gravely whether I shall fall to them at present. My way lies through that window and along the tiles, and whilst they follow, you will simply go downstairs and walk out at the front door. Go as swiftly as you can down to Piccadilly to the gates of Hyde Park. And if I am not already come there before you, wait till I arrive. It is to be considered, of course, that I may have more difficulty than I apprehend in slipping these fellows."