She said seriously: ‘I am sure I ought not, for now I come to think of it, the – the person who told me about him said it was not at all the sort of thing I should talk about. He is a Black, you know, and a great many people fancy that he will perhaps become Champion. Have you been to a prize-fight, Mr Tarleton?’
‘Do you know, I fear I have not? Have you, Miss Wantage?’
She laughed. ‘Now you are smoking me! – Oh, I don’t mean that! Making jest of me! Of course I have not! Females do not!’
‘But you are so unlike any other female I have met that that is no guide!’
‘No, indeed I am not! At least, if I am, I do not wish to be, I assure you! It is very uncomfortable to behave as other people do not: you can have no notion!’
‘I should not care a button for that. If I had any say in the matter, I should insist on your behaving just as you chose.’
She shook her head. ‘No, not when you saw what scrapes I fell into. You would be quite shocked, I dare say. I am myself.’
‘You wrong me: I have never been shocked in my life.’
‘Not even by a lady’s going to the Peerless Pool?’ asked Hero, regarding him as though he had been a rare specimen.
‘Certainly not! What is the Peerless Pool?’
‘Well, I never went there, for it – it was not liked. But I did go to Bartholomew’s Fair, and the Royal Saloon, and to tell you the truth, I was excessively amused. But it was very badton, you know, and I should not have done it.’
He threw back his head and laughed. ‘I perceive, Miss Wantage, that you are what is commonly known as a handful! Let me be very impertinent, and beseech you earnestly, when you come to marry, to choose a man, like myself, who cannot be shocked!’
She coloured and looked down at her fan. ‘Yes, well – well, I shall not come to marry.’
‘Why, how is this?’ he rallied her. ‘I prophesy that the day is not far distant when you will be surrounded by your bridesmaids, and going to Church in a cloud of lace veil and orange-blossom, with all your rejected admirers gnashing their teeth in the background, and every female relative you possess weeping in the way female relatives have, and –’
‘Oh no, indeed, you are wrong!’ she interrupted. ‘Good gracious, how extremely I should dislike it, to be sure!’
He raised his brows in mock astonishment. ‘Dislike a wedding? No, no, you cannot be as different from the rest of your sex asthat!’
‘I amnotdifferent from the rest of my sex! I only meant that I should not at all care for such a wedding as you describe. I went to one once, in London, and oh, dear! it was so shockingly unromantic!’
He smiled. ‘I collect that you would prefer a runaway match, with a fast team of post-horses, and Scottish border for your goal, and an angry Papa in hot pursuit?’
She replied seriously: ‘Well, I scarcely remember my Papa, for he died when I was a child, but I think runaway weddings arethe best, for to elope suddenly with someone you – you have a decided partiality for, and to become his wife without the least contrivance, or ceremony, or preparation, is – would be – the most beautiful adventure imaginable! Like finding yourself all at once in heaven, or fairyland, at least, when you had never thought but that you would continue in the same humdrum fashion all your life.’
His eyes wrinkled a little at the corners, but he said solemnly: ‘Miss Wantage, do you read novels?’
‘Why, yes!’ she answered, looking enquiringly at him.
‘From the Minerva Press, perhaps?’
Her enquiring look turned to one of suspicion. ‘Mr Tarleton, you are bam-laughing at me again!’
‘No, no!’ he said. ‘I am merely taking a great delight in the refreshment of your company! Plainly, only the most dashing of bridegrooms will do for you!’
The tenderest little smile hovered on her lips. ‘Yes,’ she acknowledged.
‘A Blood, a Tulip of Fashion, a Nonpareil –’
‘Oh no, he need not be that! I know a nonpareil – quite a nonesuch, I assure you! Drives to an inch! – but I should not care to elope with him. Of course, I think a man should know how to stick to his leaders, do not you?’
‘Unquestionably,’ he said gravely.
‘And as for the tulips, I know several, and they would not do for me at all. Besides, they are not romantic, because they have to think so much about their cravats and their coats and the size of their buttons that they have no time for anything besides. The most truly romantic man I know does not give a fig for what he may look like. It would not do for everyone to be so careless, of course, butheis so extremely handsome that it don’t signify a scrap.’
‘Ah, I begin to fear that this dangerous blade is the man destined to carry you off!’
