"There!" she cried, facing Aarons with a bewitching smile. "Now you can have your wish: I have put it on so that you can see me wear it!"
"It is a sight I shall always remember with admiration," said Aarons, recovering his self-command with the ease of long practice, "and I will leave it to your mirror's reflection to remind you that I only await a word from you to place my fortune at your feet."
"Ah!" sighed Prue, "if it were only a question of your fortune! Must you go, Mr. Aarons?" for he had risen, and hat in hand, was already bowing himself out.
"Unfortunately, I am much pressed for time, Viscountess, so I am reluctantly compelled to take my leave; but I trust not for long. Fare you well." And he was gone, leaving the bank-notes where she had placed them on the table.
In the hall he found James engaged in an altercation with a red-faced person in shabby black of a quasi-clerical cut. This individual was not precisely drunk, but most evidently not very sober, and the voice in which he expressed his intention of seeing and speaking with the Viscountess Brooke—if he had to wait until midnight—was very husky and rather bellicose.
"If I can not see the Lady Brooke, I'll wait and see Sir Geoffrey Beaudesert," he insisted, as James reiterated the utter impossibility of such a visitor to any member of the family.
"Sir Geoffrey Beaudesert does not live here," replied James loftily. "You had better call at his house."
The tipsy gentleman leered in a most impertinent fashion. "I'm a good deal more likely to find him at Lady Brooke's house than his own," he observed confidentially.
A hand was placed on his arm, and turning with a nervous start, he found the harsh gaze of Mr. Aarons bent sternly upon him.
"Parson Goodridge! you here and in this condition?" exclaimed the money-lender.