“Mais, il le faut. J’ai le droit de demander apres elle. Elle m’appartient, vous comprenez, madame, cette demoiselle la.”
Madame could not forbear a smile. “I wish you would speak English sense, instead of French nonsense.”
“Then the English sense is that I want Lucy and I must have her. I am going to take her for a drive in the pony carriage, if you must know. She said she’d come, and John’s getting it ready.”
“I could not possibly allow it,” said Madame Vine. “You’d be sure to upset her.”
“The idea!” he returned, indignantly. “As if I should upset Lucy! Why, I’m one of the great whips at Eton. I care for Lucy too much not to drive steadily. She is to be my wife, you know, ma bonne dame.”
At this juncture two heads were pushed out from the library, close by; those of the earl and Mr. Carlyle. Barbara, also, attracted by the talking, appeared at the door of her dressing-room.
“What’s that about a wife?” asked my lord of his son.
The blood mantled in the young gentleman’s cheek as he turned round and saw who had spoken, but he possessed all the fearlessness of an Eton boy.
“I intend Lucy Carlyle to be my wife, papa. I mean in earnest—when we shall both be grown up—if you will approve, and Mr. Carlyle will give her to me.”
The earl looked somewhat impassable, Mr. Carlyle amused. “Suppose,” said the latter, “we adjourn the discussion to this day ten years?”