"Then, pray, sir, what may be your will?"
"Sweet Polly, may I speak?"
A solid square stool—well adapted for present purposes—was close at hand, and promptly down upon this with both knees went the tall grenadier, in the most approved fashion of his day. Sweet Polly could not long stand out against his earnest pleading. So, with a show of coy reserve, she gradually yielded, intimating that she did like him just a little; that some day or other she thought she could be his wife; that meantime she would somehow manage to keep him in her memory.
"And next week you are away to Paris!" she said, perhaps secretly wondering why he did not prefer to spend his leave in Bath. "For a whole long fortnight!"
"I could wish that I were not going. But all is arranged and the Colonel desires it. I must not fail him now at the last. If I can see my way to return at the end of a se'night, I will assuredly do so. If not—I shall still have a fortnight after my return. I shall know what to do with that time, sweetheart."
It is to be feared that Polly found small leisure thereafter for meditating on the childish woes of little Molly, so full was her head of the brave young Grenadier Captain, who had vowed to devote his life to her.
Just one or two weeks of separation, and then she would have him with her again; and hers would be the ineffable delight of showing off this gallant lover among all her Bath friends. How they would one and all envy Polly!
A small touch of feminine vanity no doubt crept in here, though Polly's whole girlish heart was given to Denham. But in his deeper love for her there was no thought of what others might say. He would, of course, be proud of the fair creature whom he had won; yet in his love there was no room found for the puerile element. It pervaded the man's entire being.
He stood very much alone in the world as regarded kinship, having been left an orphan at an early age, under the guardianship of Colonel Baron, his father's cousin, and having no brothers, sisters or other near relatives. The Barons' house had been, ever since Colonel Baron's marriage, a home to him; and while Colonel Baron was in some sense almost as his father, Mrs. Baron occupied rather the position of an elder sister. To Roy and Molly, Denham had always been like a brother. He had seen a good deal of both Polly and Jack in their childhood, but during later years he had been much on service abroad; and his first view of Polly Keene, his quondam playmate, transformed into a grown-up young lady, had been but a few weeks before this date. Denham had lost his heart to her in the first half-hour of their renewed acquaintance; and Polly soon discovered that he was the one man in the world who had her happiness in his keeping.
Despite the warm affection of his Baron cousins, Denham had possessed hitherto none as absolutely his own. Now that he had won "Sweet Polly," life would wear for him a new aspect.