“He has done nothing else but renew it ever since he has been in the carriage with me.  That’s the plain truth.  He made his offer at Rufford.  He renewed it in the wood yesterday;—­and he repeated it over and over again as we came home to-day.  It may have been very wrong, but so it was.”  Miss Trefoil must have thought that kissing and proposing were the same thing.  Other young ladies have, perhaps, before now made such a mistake.  But this young lady had had much experience and should have known better.

“Lord Rufford had better perhaps speak to your uncle.”

“Will you tell him so, aunt?”

The Duchess thought about it for a moment.  She certainly could not tell Lord Rufford to speak to the Duke without getting the Duke’s leave to tell him so.  And then, if all this were done, and Lord Rufford were to assure the Duke that the young lady had made a mistake, how derogatory would all that be to the exalted quiescence of the house of Mayfair!  She thoroughly wished that her niece were out of the house; for though she did believe the story, her belief was not thorough.  “I will speak to your uncle,” she said.  “And now you had better go to sleep.”

“And, dear aunt, pray excuse me at dinner.  I have been so excited, so flurried, and so fatigued, that I fear I should make a fool of myself if I attempted to come down.  I should get into a swoon, which would be dreadful.  My maid shall bring me a bit of something and a glass of sherry, and you shall find me in the drawing-room when you come out” Then the Duchess went, and Arabella was left alone to take another view of the circumstances of the campaign.

Though there were still infinite dangers, yet she could hardly wish that anything should be altered.  Should Lord Rufford disown her, which she knew to be quite possible, there would be a general collapse and the world would crash over her head.  But she had known, when she took this business in hand, that as success would open Elysium to her, so would failure involve her in absolute ruin.  She was determined that she would mar nothing now by cowardice, and having so resolved, and having fortified herself with perhaps two glasses of sherry, she went down to the drawing-room a little before nine, and laid herself out upon a sofa till the ladies should come in.

Lord Rufford had gone to bed, as was his wont on such occasions, with orders that he should be called to dress for dinner at half-past seven.  But as he laid himself down he made up his mind that, instead of sleeping, he would give himself up to thinking about Arabella Trefoil.  The matter was going beyond a joke, and would require some thinking.  He liked her well enough, but was certainly not in love with her.  I doubt whether men ever are in love with girls who throw themselves into their arms.  A man’s love, till it has been chastened and fastened by the feeling of duty which marriage brings with it, is instigated mainly by the difficulty of pursuit.