Part 30 (1/2)

_Miss Niphet._ It must not be so--at least, not yet.

_Lord Curryfin._ There is nothing I would not do to acquire the right.

_Miss Niphet._ Nothing?

_Lord Curryfin._ Nothing.

_Miss Niphet._ How thrives your suit with Miss Gryll?

_Lord Curryfin._ That is at an end. I have her permission--her command she calls it--to throw myself at your feet, and on your mercy.

_Miss Niphet._ How did she take leave of you, crying or laughing?

_Lord Curryfin._ Why, if anything, laughing.

_Miss Niphet._. Do you not feel mortified?

_Lord Curryfin._ I have another and deeper feeling, which predominates over any possible mortification.

_Miss Niphet._ And that is--

_Lord Curryfin._ Can you doubt what it is!

_Miss Niphet._. I will not pretend to doubt. I have for some time been well aware of your partiality for me.

_Lord Curryfin._ Partiality! Say love, adoration, absorption of all feelings into one.

_Miss Niphet._. Then you may call me Alice. But once more, let go my hand.

_Lord Curryfin._ My hand, is it not?

_Miss Niphet._. Yours, when you claim it.

_Lord Curryfin._ Then thus I seal my claim.

He kissed her hand as respectfully as was consistent with 'masterless pa.s.sion'; and she said to him, 'I will not dissemble. If I have had one wish stronger than another--strong enough to exclude all others--it has been for the day when you might be free to say to me what you have now said. Am I too frank with you?'

_Lord Curryfin._ Oh, heaven, no! I drink in your words as a stream from paradise.

He sealed his claim again, but this time it was on her lips. The rose again mantled on her cheek, but the blush was heightened to damask. She withdrew herself from his arms, saying, 'Once for all, till you have an indisputable right.'

CHAPTER x.x.xI

A TWELFTH-NIGHT BALL--PANTOPRAGMATIC COOKERY--MODERN VANDALISM--A BOWL OF PUNCH

sic erimus cuncti, postquam nos auferet Orcus: ergo vivamus, dura licet esse bene.

So must we be, when ends our mortal day: Then let us live, while yet live well we may.

_Trimalchio, with the silver skeleton: in_ Petronius: c. 34.