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  ‘I daresay you would,’ he replied. ‘Much good that would do me! Lord, what an after-clap there would be if I was to do any-thing so ramshackle as to drive off to London with a chit of your age – and nothing but a dashed bandbox between the pair of us!’ he added, looking with profound disapproval at this object.

  ‘I didn’t mean we should go in the whisky! How can you be so absurd? A post-chaise, of course!’

  ‘Yes, and four horses as well, no doubt!’

  She nodded, surprised that he should have thought it necessary to have asked.

  Her innocent look, far from captivating Laurence, exasperated him. ‘Have you the least notion what it would cost?’ he demanded.

  ‘Oh, what can that signify?’ she exclaimed impatiently. ‘My uncle will pay for it!’

  ‘Very likely, but he ain’t here,’ Laurence pointed out.

  ‘He will pay all the charges when I reach London.’

  ‘You won’t reach London. Who’s to pay the first post-boys? Who’s to pay for the changes of teams? If it comes to that, who’s to pay for your lodging on the road? It’s close on two hundred miles to London, you know – at least, I collect you don’t know! What’s more, you can’t put up at a posting-house, travelling all by yourself ! I shouldn’t wonder at it if they refused to take you in. Well, I mean to say, who ever heard of such a thing? Now, do but consider, Miss Wield! You can’t do such a jingle-brained thing: take my word for it!’

  ‘Do you care what people may say?’ Tiffany asked scornfully.

  ‘Yes,’ he answered.

  ‘How paltry! I don’t!’

  ‘I daresay you don’t. You’re too young to know what you’re talking about. If you’re so set on going to London, you ask Miss Trent to take you there!’

  ‘Oh, how stupid you are!’ she cried passionately. ‘She wouldn’t do it!’

  ‘Well, that quite settles it!’ said Laurence. ‘You drink your lemonade, like a good girl, and I’ll drive you back to Staples. No need to tell anyone where we’ve been: just say we went farther than we intended!’

  Curbing the impulse to throw the lemonade in his face, Tiffany said winningly: ‘I know you couldn’t be cruel enough to take me back to Staples. I had rather die than go back! Go with me to London! We could pretend we were married, couldn’t we? That would make everything right!’

  ‘You know,’ said Laurence severely, ‘you’ve got the most ramshackle notions of anyone I ever met! No, it would not make everything right!’

  She looked provocatively at him, under lashes. ‘What if I did marry you? Perhaps I will!’

  ‘Yes, and perhaps you won’t!’ he retorted. ‘Of all the outrageous –’

  ‘I am very rich, you know! My cousin says that’s why you dangle after me!’

  ‘Oh, does he? Well, you may tell your precious cousin, with my compliments, that I ain’t such a gudgeon as to run off with a girl who won’t come into her inheritance for four years!’ said Laurence, much incensed. ‘Yes, and another thing! I wouldn’t do it if you was of age! For one thing, I don’t wish to marry you; and, for another, I ain’t a dashed hedge-bird, and I wouldn’t run a rig like that even if I were all to pieces!’

  ‘Don’t wish to marry me?’ Tiffany gasped, and suddenly burst into tears.

  Horrified, Laurence said: ‘Not a marrying man! If I were – Oh, lord! For God’s sake, don’t cry! I didn’t mean – that is, any number of men wish to marry you! Shouldn’t wonder at it if you became a duchess! I assure you – most beautiful girl I ever set eyes on!’

  ‘Nobody wants to marry me!’ sobbed Tiffany.

  ‘Mickleby! Ash! Young Banningham!’ uttered Laurence.

  ‘Those! ’ Tiffany said, with loathing. ‘Besides, they don’t ! I wish I were dead!’

  ‘You’re above their touch!’ said Laurence desperately. ‘Above mine too! You’ll marry into the Peerage – see if you don’t! But not,’ he added, ‘if you go beyond the line!’

  ‘I don’t care! I want to go to London, and I will go to London! If you won’t escort me, will you lend me the money for the journey?’

  ‘No – Good God, no! Besides, I haven’t got it! And even if I had I wouldn’t lend it to you!’ Strong indignation rose in his breast. ‘What do you suppose my cousin Waldo would have to say to me if I was to do anything so cock-brained as to send you off to London in a post-chaise-and-four, with nothing but a dashed bandbox, and not so much as an abigail to take care of you?’

  ‘Sir Waldo?’ Tiffany said, her tears arrested. ‘Do you think he would be vexed?’

  ‘Vexed! Tear me in pieces! What’s more,’ said Laurence fairly, ‘I wouldn’t blame him! A nice mess I should be in! No, I thank you!’

  ‘Very well!’ said Tiffany tragically. ‘Leave me!’

  ‘I do wish,’ said Laurence, eyeing her with a patent want of admiration, ‘that you wouldn’t talk in that totty-headed fashion! Anyone would think you was regularly dicked in the nob! Leave you, indeed! A pretty figure I should cut!’

  She shrugged. ‘Well, it’s no matter to me! If you choose to be disobliging –’

  ‘It may not be any matter to you, but it is to me!’ interrupted Laurence. ‘Seems to me nothing matters to you but yourself !’

  ‘Well, it seems to me that nothing matters to you but yourself !’ flashed Tiffany. ‘Go away! Go away, go away, go away !’

  Her voice rose on every repetition of the command, and Laurence, in the liveliest dread of being precipitated into a scandalous scene, swallowed his spleen, and adopted a conciliatory tone. ‘Now, listen!’ he begged. ‘You don’t want for sense, and you must see that I can’t go away, leaving you here alone! What the deuce would you do? Tell me that! And don’t say you’ll go to London, because for one thing you haven’t enough blunt to pay for the hire of a chaise, and for another I’d lay you long odds there ain’t a postmaster living that would be such a clunch as to oblige you! If you was to try to tip him a rise, he’d be bound to think you was running away from school, or some such thing, and a rare hobble he’d be in if he aided and abetted you! What he’d do would be to send for the constable, and then your tale would be told!’ He perceived that her eyes had widened in dismay, and at once enlarged on this theme. ‘Before you knew where you were you’d be taken before a magistrate, and if you refused to tell him who you was he’d commit you. A pretty piece of business that would be!’

  ‘Oh, no!’ she said, shuddering. ‘He wouldn’t – he couldn’t !’

  ‘Oh, yes, he would!’ said Laurence. ‘So, if you don’t want everyone to know you tried to run away, and had to be bailed out of prison, you’d best come home with me now. No need to fear I’ll tell a soul what happened! I won’t.’

  She did not answer for a minute or two, but sat staring at him. Miss Trent would instantly have recognized the expression on her face; Laurence was less familiar with it, and waited hopefully for her capitulation. ‘But if I were to go on the stage-coach, or the Mail,’ she said thoughtfully, ‘no one would try to stop me. I know that, because several of the girls used to come to Miss Climping’s school on the stage. I’m very much obliged to you for warning me! Yes, and the Mail coaches travel all night, so I shan’t have to put up at a posting-house! How much will it cost me to buy a ticket, if you please?’

  ‘I don’t know, and it don’t signify, because I’m not going to let you go to London, post, stage, or Mail!’

  She got up, and began to draw on her gloves. ‘Oh, yes! You can’t prevent me. I know just what to do if you try to – and it won’t be of the least use to stand leaning against the door like that, because if you don’t open it for me at once I shall scream for help, and when people come I shall say that you are abducting me!’

  ‘What, in an open carriage, and you hopping down in the yard as merry as a cricket? That won’t fadge, you little pea-goose!’