He looks eagerly to right and left, and shrugs his shoulder impatiently.
"There are about forty smiling virgins within a dozen yards of me. How am I to pick out the stricken one? As you have gone so far, Florrie," he whispers coaxingly, "you might as well commit yourself altogether."
"Well, Jack," she answers, with well-feigned reluctance, "whatever your faults may be, you are a gentleman, and—and, if I do you'll take no advantage, or betray—"
"Of course not. What do you take me for?"
"The girl is Cicely Deane."
"Cicely Deane!" he echoes, with an incredulous laugh. "Well, Flo, I think you might have made a better shot than that. Cicely Deane! Why, she looks on me as a sort of elder brother! I've known her since she was a baby. It's too preposterous, you know. Why, I should rather suspect you, ma belle, of falling in love with—with me than that self-possessed, cold-blooded little saint, the legitimate prey of the Church!"
"The Church has not had much success as yet. Last week she refused the Honorable and Reverend Basil Wendrop, Lord Hareford's second son, a divine with the profile of an Antoninus and the tongue of a Chrysostom; her parents are in despair about it. Ah, there is my partner at the door looking for me—Major Newton! I want you to look at him rather particularly, Jack, because I'm half contemplating matrimony with that lucky individual."
"Newton? O, I know him well! He's a very good fellow—just returned from India, has he not?"
"Yes; he has been away six years. He turned up the other day and calmly informed me that I had solemnly promised long ago to marry him if he could make a certain competence—a most ridiculous sum! I don't think I could have mentioned it, even in the school-room. Seven thousand pounds—absurd, you know! I don't remember the circumstance—in fact, I could scarcely recall the poor man's existence when he first appeared; but it seems he has been living on that promise for the last six years in one of the most unhealthy holes in India, starving and screwing to make up that wretched sum; and—now—now—if you please, he wants me to marry him and share it with him. He fell in love with me when I was a great fat-faced tomboy in the school-room, and has never thought of any one since—ridiculous man!"