"The idea!" She laughed, as if the notion tickled her. "In the first place, I shouldn't dream of suing you, even if you were to prove false; and you know very well that you're not worth half as many farthings if I did. No; I propose to obtain my five thousand pounds from Sir Frank Pickard."
"Who's Sir Frank Pickard?"
"He's a young gentleman--a very young gentleman, just turned twenty-one, who's fallen head over heels in love with me."
The lady was looking down at her skirt, as she smoothed it with the tips of her fingers, with an air of the most extreme demureness. Mr Lamb's face, as he regarded her, was rapidly assuming the hue of a boiled lobster.
"So you've been encouraging him, have you?"
"I have been doing nothing of the kind. So far, I haven't spoken to him a single word. I've declined to receive his presents--even his flowers."
"So he's been sending you presents, has he!--and flowers."
The lady sighed, as if she found the gentleman a little trying.
"My dear Joe, all sorts of people fall in love with me to whom I have never spoken in my life, or they say they do. They send me flowers and presents, and all kinds of things, which I always refuse to accept, although some of the other girls call me a goose for my pains. I can't help their falling in love with me, can I?"
She looked up at him with an air of innocence which was almost too perfect to be real. So far from it appeasing him, he began stamping up and down the room, clenching and unclenching his fists as he moved.