"But the others were with her."
"What others?"
"Northey."
"I shall kick Northey, when I am married," the lad proclaimed with drunken solemnity. "That's all."
"Well, you'll be married to-morrow."
"Why not to-day? That's what I want to know. Eh? Why not to-day?"
"Because the fair Oriana is at Ipswich, and you are here," the Irishman answered with a trace of impatience in his tone. Then under his breath he added, "D--n the jade! This is one of her tricks. She's never where she is wanted."
In the meantime the lad had been set in motion again, and the two had reached the end of Davies Street at the north-west corner of the square. Here, perceiving the other mutter, Tom--for Sophia's brother, Tom, it was--stopped anew. "Eh? What's that?" he said. "What's that you are saying, old tulip?"
"I was saying you were a monstrous clever fellow to win her--to-day or to-morrow," Hawkesworth answered coolly. "And I am hanged if I know how you did it. I can tell you a hundred gay fellows in the town are dying to marry her. And no flinchers, either."
"'Pon honour?"