“So I supposed.  That is the reason why I have come to you.”

“Well—­well—­well?”

“Lady Ongar is a person whom I have known for a long times and for whom I have a great—­I may say—­a very deep regard.”

“Ah! yes.  What a jointure she has! and what a park!  Thousands and thousands of pounds—­and so beautiful!  If I was a man I should have a very deep regard, too.  Yes.”

“A most beautiful creature, is she not?”

“Ah; if you had seen her in Florence, as I used to see her, in the long Summer evenings!  Her lovely hair was all loose to the wind, and she would sit hour after hour looking, oh, at the stars!  Have you seen the stars in Italy?”

Captain Clavering couldn’t say that he had, but he had seen them uncommon bright in Norway, when he had been fishing there.

“Or the moon?” continued Sophie, not regarding his answer.  “Ah; that is to live!  And he, her husband, the rich lord, he was dying, in a little room just inside, you know.  It was very melancholy, Captain Clavering.  But when she was looking at the moon with her hair all dishevelled,” and Sophie put her hands up to her own dirty nightcap—­“she was just like a Magdalen; yes, just the same; just the same.”

The exact strength of the picture, and the nature of the comparison drawn, were perhaps lost upon Archie; and, indeed, Sophie herself probably trusted more to the tone of her words, than to any idea which they contained; but their tone was perfect, and she felt that if anything could make him talk, he would talk now.

“Dear me! you don’t say so.  I have always admired her very much, Madam Gordeloup.”

“Well?”

The French ambassador was probably in the next street already, and if Archie was to tell his tale at all, he must do it now.

“You will keep my secret if I tell it you?” he asked.

“Is it me you ask that?  Did you ever hear of me that I tell a gentleman’s secret?  I think not.  If you have a secret, and will trust me, that will be good; if you will not trust me—­that will be good also.”

“Of course I will trust you.  That is why I have come here.”

“Then out with it.  I am not a little girl.  You need not be bashful.  Two and two make four.  I know that.  But some people want them to make five.  I know that, too.  So speak out what you have to say.”

“I am going to ask Lady Ongar to—­to—­to—­marry me.”

“Ah, indeed; with all the thousands of pounds and the beautiful park!  But the beautiful hair is more than all the thousands of pounds.  Is it not so?”

“Well, as to that, they all go together, you know.”

“And that is so lucky!  If they was to be separated, which would you take?”

The little woman grinned as she asked this question, and Archie, had he at all understood her character, might at once have put himself on a pleasant footing with her; but he was still confused and ill at ease, and only muttered something about the truth of his love for Julia.