Page:Lady Barbarity; a romance (IA ladybarbarityrom00snai).pdf/186

 treason and dishonour, and all shall be forgiven you."

"My faith, I will destroy it!" he cried, with a fire smouldering in him, "and oh, my dearest lady, how good you are! How magnanimous!"

Our whimsical rehearsal of a play had carried us both into a stern earnestness it seemed; but I being the better schooled in deception and the social arts, was the quicker of recovery.

"Magnanimous!" I flashed out at him, and curled my lip in scorn, "you impudent young fool! Do you suppose that anything a beggar with bare elbows, whose mansion is the pillory, and whose carriage is the cart, can contrive to do or say will touch in any way my Lady Barbara, the toast of the Prince of Wales? You presumptuous rogue, to hear you talk one would think you at least a lord-in-waiting, or a minister of the Crown."

"Then you are not hurt?" he did persist.

"Hurt," I laughed, "if I am bitten with a fly, I am not hurt, though perchance I am annoyed."

"You are annoyed, madam?" he persisted still.

"You can call it annoyance, you little fly," I said.

"Then let me crave your pardon for it," he implored, and the humility was so delightful he did it with that sure I could not say which was the most appealing—his meekness, his softness, or his insolence. By good luck the supper bell here intervened between us and our feelings; a few final touches from the maid, and we were tripping down