’Then finish my history, shut up the book; I am a phantom of a man, and everything written there is imposture!  I can account for all that she has done hitherto, but not that she should refuse to see me.  Not that she should refuse to see me now when I come armed to demand it!  Refuse?  But I have done my work, done what I said I would do.  I stand in my order of battle, and she refuses?  No!  I stake my head on it!  I have not a clod’s perception, I have not a spark of sense to distinguish me from a flat-headed Lapp, if she refuses:—­call me a mountebank who has gained his position by clever tumbling; a lucky gamester; whatever plays blind with chance.’

He started up in agitation.  ’Lucie!  I am a grinning skull without a brain if that girl refuses!  She will not.’  He took his hat to leave, adding, to seem rational to the cool understanding he addressed:  ’She will not refuse; I am bound to think so in common respect for myself; I have done tricks to make me appear a rageing ape if she—­oh! she cannot, she will not refuse.  Never!  I have eyes, I have wits, I am not tottering yet on my grave—­or it’s blindly, if I am.  I have my clear judgement, I am not an imbecile.  It seems to me a foolish suspicion that she can possibly refuse.  Her manners are generally good; freakish, but good in the main.  Perhaps she takes a sting . . . but there is no sting here.  It would be bad manners to refuse; to say nothing of . . . she has a heart!  Well, then, good manners and right feeling forbid her to refuse.  She is an exceedingly intelligent girl, and I half fear I have helped you to a wrong impression of her.  You will really appreciate her wit; you will indeed; believe me, you will.  We pardon nonsense in a girl.  Married, she will put on the matron with becoming decency, and I am responsible for her then; I stand surety for her then; when I have her with me I warrant her mine and all mine, head and heels, at a whistle, like the Cossack’s horse.  I fancy that at forty I am about as young as most young men.  I promise her another forty manful working years.  Are you dubious of that?’

‘I nod to you from the palsied summit of ninety,’ said the baroness.

Alvan gave a short laugh and stammered excuses for his naked egoism, comparing himself to a forester who has sharpened such an appetite in toiling to slay his roe that he can think of nothing but the fire preparing the feast.

‘Hymen and things hymenaeal!’ he said, laughing at himself for resuming the offence on the apology for it.  ’I could talk with interest of a trousseau.  I have debated in my mind with parliamentary acrimony about a choice of wedding-presents.  As she is legally free to bestow her hand on me—­and only a brute’s horns could contest the fact—­she may decide to be married the day after to-morrow, and get the trousseau in Paris.  She has a turn for startling.  I can imagine that if I proposed a run for it she would be readier to spring to be