If she consented to this, the emeralds were hers once more.
'This is the proposal of a madman,' said I, as I handed back the
letter.
'Well,' she replied, with a nonchalant shrug of her shoulders, 'he has
always said he was madly in love with me, and I quite believe it. Poor
young man, if this mummery were to console him for the rest of his
life, why should I not indulge him in it?'
'Lady Alicia, surely you would not countenance the profaning of that
lovely old edifice with a mock ceremonial? No man in his senses could
suggest such a thing!'
Once more her eyes were twinkling with merriment.
'But the Honourable John Haddon, as I have told you, is not in his
senses.'
'Then why should you indulge him?'
'Why? How can you ask such a question? Because of the emeralds. It is
only a mad lark, after all, and no one need know of it. Oh, Monsieur
Valmont,' she cried pleadingly, clasping her hands, and yet it seemed
to me with an undercurrent of laughter in her beseeching tones, 'will
you not enact for us the part of clergyman? I am sure if your face
were as serious as it is at this moment, the robes of a priest would
become you.'
'Lady Alicia, you are incorrigible. I am somewhat of a man of the
world, yet I should not dare to counterfeit the sacred office, and I
hope you but jest.
Pages:
341
342
343
344
345
346
347
348
349
350
351
352
353
354
355
356
357
358
359
360
361
362
363
364
365