Page:Shirley (1849 Volume 3).djvu/171

 you have done there, Satan knows: nothing in this world, I believe, but sat and sulked: your face was never lily-fair, but it is olive-green now. You're not as bonnie as you were, man."

"And who is to have this prize you talk so much about?"

"Only a baronet: that is all. I have not a doubt in my own mind you've lost her: she will be Lady Nunnely before Christmas."

"Hem! Quite probable."

"But she need not to have been. Fool of a lad! I swear you might have had her!"

"By what token, Mr. Yorke?"

"By every token. By the light of her eyes, the red of her cheeks: red they grew when your name was mentioned, though of custom they are pale."

"My chance is quite over, I suppose?"

"It ought to be; but try: it is worth trying. I call this Sir Philip milk and water. And then he writes verses, they say—tags rhymes. You are above that, Bob, at all events."

"Would you advise me to propose, late as it is, Mr. Yorke? at the eleventh hour?"

"You can but make the experiment, Robert. If she has a fancy for you—and, on my conscience, I believe she has, or had—she will forgive much. But my lad, you are laughing: is it at me? You had better girn at your own perverseness. I see, however, you laugh at the wrong side of your mouth: you have as sour a look at this moment as one need wish to see."