He looked pained at that.  A dark-red flush came over all his face.  He squared his shoulders and got over the window-sill again.

“You cold statue!” he said, spitefully.  “I will leave you.”

“Go,” was all I said, and I did not move an inch.

He stood looking at me for a few moments, then with one bound he was in the room again and had seized me in his arms.

“No, I sha’n’t!” he exclaimed.  “You have promised, and I don’t care what you say or do.  I will keep you to your word.”

Mercifully, at that moment Hephzibah opened the door, and in the confusion her entrance caused him, he let me go.  I simply flew from the room and up to my own; and there, I am ashamed to say, I cried—­sat on the floor and cried like a gutter-child.  Oh, if grandmamma could have seen me, how angry she would have been!  I have never been allowed to cry—­a relaxation for the lower classes, she has always told me.

My face burned.  All the bottles of Lubin in grandmamma’s cupboard would not wash off the stain of that kiss, I felt.  I scrubbed my face until it was crimson, and then I heard grandmamma’s voice and had to pull myself together.

I have always said she had hawk’s eyes; they see everything, even with the blinds down in her room.  When I went in she noticed my red lids and asked the cause of them.

“Mr. Gurrage has been here and has asked me to marry him, grandmamma,” I said.

“At this hour in the morning!  What does the young man mean?”

“He saw me dusting the Sevres from the road and came in.”

Grandmamma kissed me—­a thing of the greatest rareness.

“My child,” she said, “try and remember to accept fate without noise.  Now go and rest until breakfast, or you will not be pretty for your ball to-night.”

The Marquis’s congratulations were different when we met in the salle a manger; he kissed my hand.  How cool and fine his old, withered fingers felt!

“You will be the most beautiful debutante to-night, ma chere enfant,” he said; “and all the felicitations are for Monsieur Gurrage.  You are a noble girl—­but such is life.  My wife detested me—­dans le temps.  But what will you?”

“You, at least, were a gentleman, Marquis,” I said.

“There is that, to be sure,” he allowed.  “But my wife preferred her dancing-master.  One can never judge.”

At half-past two o’clock (they must have gobbled their lunch), Mrs. Gurrage, Augustus—­yes, I must get accustomed to saying that odious name—­Augustus and Miss Hoad drove up in the barouche, and got solemnly out and came up to the door which Hephzibah held open for them.  They solemnly entered the sitting-room where we all were, and solemnly shook hands.  There is something dreadfully ill-behaved about me to-day.  I could hardly prevent myself from screaming with laughter.

“I’ve heard the joyous news,” Mrs. Gurrage said, “and I’ve come to take you to me heart, me dear.”