Julia frowned.  ‘You cannot be in earnest,’ she said.

‘Never more in earnest in my life!’ he replied.  ’Say the word—­say you’ll have me,’ he continued, pressing his little hat to his breast and gazing over it with melting looks, ’most adorable of your sex, and I’ll call up Pomeroy, I’ll call up Tommy, the old woman, too, if you choose, and tell ’em, tell ’em all.’

‘I must be dreaming,’ Julia murmured, gazing at him in a kind of fascination.

‘Then if to dream is to assent, dream on, fair love!’ his lordship spouted with a grand air.  And then, ’Hang it! that’s—­that’s rather clever of me,’ he continued.  ’And I mean it too!  Oh, depend upon it, there’s nothing that a man won’t think of when he’s in love!  And I am fallen confoundedly in love with—­with you, ma’am.’

‘But very suddenly,’ Julia replied.  She was beginning to recover from her amazement.

‘You don’t think that I am sincere?’ he protested plaintively.  ’You doubt me!  Then—­’he advanced a pace towards her with hat and arms extended, ’let the eloquence of a—­a feeling heart plead for me; a heart, too—­yes, too sensible of your charms, and—­and your many merits, ma’am!  Yes, most adorable of your sex.  But there,’ he added, breaking off abruptly, ’I said that before, didn’t I?  Yes.  Lord! what a memory I have got!  I am all of a twitter.  I was so cut last night, I don’t know what I am saying.’

‘That I believe,’ Julia said with chilling severity.

‘Eh, but—­but you do believe I am in earnest?’ he cried anxiously.  ’Shall I kneel to you?  Shall I call up the servants and tell them?  Shall I swear that I mean honourably?  Lord!  I am no Mr. Thornhill!  I’ll make it as public as you like,’ he continued eagerly.  ’I’ll send for a bishop—­’

‘Spare me the bishop,’ Julia rejoined with a faint smile, ’and any farther appeals.  They come, I am convinced, my lord, rather from your head than your heart.’

‘Oh, Lord, no!’ he cried.

‘Oh, Lord, yes,’ she answered with a spice of her old archness.  ’I may have a tolerable opinion of my own attractions—­women commonly have, it is said.  But I am not so foolish, my lord, as to suppose that on the three or four occasions on which I have seen you I can have gained your heart.  To what I am to attribute your sudden—­shall I call it whim or fancy—­’ Julia continued with a faint blush, ’I do not know.  I am willing to suppose that you do not mean to insult me.’

Lord Almeric denied it with a woeful face.

‘Or to deceive me.  I am willing to suppose,’ she repeated, stopping him by a gesture as he tried to speak, ’that you are in earnest for the time, my lord, in desiring to make me your wife, strange and sudden as the desire appears.  It is a great honour, but it is one which I must as earnestly and positively decline.’

‘Why?’ he cried, gaping, and then, ’O ’swounds, ma’am, you don’t mean it?’ he continued piteously.  ‘Not have me?  Not have me?  And why?’