“A taller man, Cousin Esmond!” says she.  “A man of spirit would have sealed the wall, sir, and seized them!  A man of courage would have fought for ’em, not gaped for ’em.”

“A Duke has but to gape and they drop into his mouth,” says Esmond, with another low bow.

“Yes, sir,” says she, “a Duke is a taller man than you.  And why should I not be grateful to one such as his Grace, who gives me his heart and his great name?  It is a great gift he honors me with; I know ’tis a bargain between us; and I accept it, and will do my utmost to perform my part of it.  ’Tis no question of sighing and philandering between a noble man of his Grace’s age and a girl who hath little of that softness in her nature.  Why should I not own that I am ambitious, Harry Esmond; and if it be no sin in a man to covet honor, why should a woman too not desire it?  Shall I be frank with you, Harry, and say that if you had not been down on your knees, and so humble, you might have fared better with me?  A woman of my spirit, cousin, is to be won by gallantry, and not by sighs and rueful faces.  All the time you are worshipping and singing hymns to me, I know very well I am no goddess, and grow weary of the incense.  So would you have been weary of the goddess too—­when she was called Mrs. Esmond, and got out of humor because she had not pin-money enough, and was forced to go about in an old gown.  Eh! cousin, a goddess in a mob-cap, that has to make her husband’s gruel, ceases to be divine—­I am sure of it.  I should have been sulky and scolded; and of all the proud wretches in the world Mr. Esmond is the proudest, let me tell him that.  You never fall into a passion; but you never forgive, I think.  Had you been a great man, you might have been good-humored; but being nobody, sir, you are too great a man for me; and I’m afraid of you, cousin—­there! and I won’t worship you, and you’ll never be happy except with a woman who will.  Why, after I belonged to you, and after one of my tantrums, you would have put the pillow over my head some night, and smothered me, as the black man does the woman in the play that you’re so fond of.  What’s the creature’s name?—­Desdemona.  You would, you little black-dyed Othello!”

“I think I should, Beatrix,” says the Colonel.

“And I want no such ending.  I intend to live to be a hundred, and to go to ten thousand routs and balls, and to play cards every night of my life till the year eighteen hundred.  And I like to be the first of my company, sir; and I like flattery and compliments, and you give me none; and I like to be made to laugh, sir, and who’s to laugh at your dismal face, I should like to know? and I like a coach-and six or a coach-and-eight; and I like diamonds, and a new gown every week; and people to say—­’That’s the Duchess—­How well her Grace looks—­Make way for Madame l’Ambassadrice d’Angleterre—­Call her Excellency’s people’—­that’s what I like.  And as for you, you want a woman