'Sakes! but to seal the bargain, child,' he remonstrated, trying to get near her.
She forced a faint smile, and, still retreating, gave him her hand to kiss. 'Seal it on that,' she said graciously. Then, 'Your lordship will pardon me, I am sure. I am not very well, and--and yesterday has shaken me. Will you be so good as to leave me now, until to-morrow?'
'To-morrow!' he cried. 'To-morrow! Why, it is an age! An eternity!'
But she was determined to have until to-morrow--God knows why. And, with a little firmness, she persuaded him, and he went.
CHAPTER XXVI
BOON COMPANIONS
Lord Almeric flew down the stairs on the wings of triumph, rehearsing at each corner the words in which he would announce his conquest. He found his host and the tutor sitting together in the parlour, in the middle of a game of shilling hazard; which they were playing, the former with as much enjoyment and the latter with as much good-humour as consisted with the fact that Mr. Pomeroy was losing, and Mr. Thomasson played against his will. The weather had changed for the worse since morning. The sky was leaden, the trees were dripping, the rain hung in rows of drops along the rails that flanked the avenue. Mr. Pomeroy cursed the damp hole he owned and sighed for town and the Cocoa Tree. The tutor wished he were quit of the company--and his debts. And both were so far from suspecting what had happened upstairs, though the tutor had his hopes, that Mr. Pomeroy was offering three to one against his friend, when Lord Almeric danced in upon them.
'Give me joy!' he cried breathless. 'D'you hear, Pom? She'll take me, and I have bussed her! March could not have done it quicker! She's mine, and the pool! She is mine! Give me joy!'
Mr. Thomasson lost not a minute in rising and shaking him by the hand. 'My dear lord,' he said, in a voice rendered unusually rich and mellow by the prospect of five thousand pounds, 'you make me infinitely happy. You do indeed! I give your lordship joy! I assure you that it will ever be a matter of the deepest satisfaction to me that I was the cause under Providence of her presence here! A fine woman, my lord, and a--a commensurate fortune!'