"What I have come to say is important. Anastasia, in this matter I have given you my entire confidence. There have been, I own, occasions when I have been compelled—but all that is over. I now confide absolutely in you and in you alone. My interests are yours."
"You have already given me that assurance on other occasions." She implied, perhaps, by these words that the assurance and the fact were not identical.
"What can I give you except my assurance?"
"Nothing, truly. But pray go on. I hear that you have been playing the part of knight errant and fighting for distressed damsels. I laughed when I heard of it. You to fight on the side of the angels? Where are your wings, my Ludovick?"
"The thing happened exactly as I could have wished. The country bumpkin who carried her off had no knowledge of fence. He could only lunge, and he was half drunk. There was a great appearance of desperate fighting—because he was mad with drink and disappointment. I played with the fellow long enough to make a show of courage and danger. Then I pinked him."
"Is he dead?"
"I believe that he is in some kind of fever. Perhaps he is by this time dead. What matters? Well, Anastasia, the result of the affair is that I have now arrived at perfect confidence on the part of my old friend the guardian."
"And with the girl?"
"The girl matters nothing. The first part of the business is done. You can now go back to London."
"Go back to London?" she repeated, suspiciously.