"I am afraid you would be sadly disappointed," she said, with a smile.
"Will you let me risk that?" he said, eagerly, and trying to take her hand.
She withdrew her hand, and rose.
"I can't tell you yet," she said; "I can scarcely believe that we are talking seriously. But you have been always very kind, and I'm very much obliged to you——"
"Miss Brunel," said the Count, hurriedly—he did not like to hear a lady say she was much obliged by his offer of 30,000*l.* a year—"don't make any abrupt decision, if you have not made up your mind. At any rate, you don't refuse to consider the matter? I knew you would at least do me that justice—in a week's time, perhaps——"
She gave him her hand, as he lifted his hat and cane, and he gratefully bowed over it, and ventured to kiss it; and then he took his leave, with a radiant smile on his face as he went downstairs.
"Club. And, d—n it, be quick!" he said to his astonished coachman.
Arrived there, he ordered the waiter to take up to the smoking-room a bottle of the pale port which the Count was in the habit of drinking there. Then he countermanded the order.
"I needn't make a beast of myself because I feel happy," he said to himself, wisely, as he went into the dining-room. "Alfred, I'll have a bit of cold chicken, and a bottle of the wine that you flatter yourself is Château Yquem."
Alfred, who was a tall and stately person, with red hair and no h's, was not less astonished than the Count's coachman had been. However, he brought the various dishes, and then the wine. The Count poured the beautiful amber fluid into a tumbler, and took a draught of it: