Page:Lady Barbarity; a romance (IA ladybarbarityrom00snai).pdf/181

 *I made them happy for a week. And they had their rent rolls and their pedigrees! Indeed, one and all wore such quantities of gold lace on their coats that when the world heard of my depredations, it exclaimed: "Bab Gossiter is the very luckiest woman that ever flicked a fan." Therefore, was it not a paradox that I should prefer a kinless beggar to them all, and that he, presumably, preferred any slum-slut to my Lady Barbara?

"Why, you stoic villain!" I cried out, "you seem every whit as insensible to tenderness as to the Cleopatra manner. Do you not see my mood to be as melting as the morning sun?"

"Confess now," says he provokingly, "that you yearn to beat me with your fan?"

"Faith, that's true," says I.

"Then," says he, "this tenderness of yours is but a cloak you do put on to cover up Old Termagant. Your real nature is as sweet and gentle as an earthquake. Your meekness is a mantrap in which to snare a poor wretch with a shattered knee, for you are about as tame and docile in your character as is a rude lion of Arabia. Fie, my dearest cheat, you do not catch Anthony Dare for your husband thus—that is, I mean James Grantley."

"Yes, that is, you mean James Grantley," says I, seizing on his error.

"Or, if it comes to that," says he, "you can include Mr. Anthony Dare in that category. That is another man you will not catch for husband."

"'Tis a pity," I said, stroking my chin in a