you know her. Just wait, and take in two or three words from me, and
notice particularly how she is looking, and the dress she wears. You can
say--say that Mrs. Chump sent you to enquire after Miss Belloni's
health."

Wilfrid tore a leaf from his pocket-book, and wrote:

"I can be free to-morrow. One word! I shall expect it, with your name
in full."

But even in the red heat of passion his born diplomacy withheld his own
signature. It was not difficult to override Braintop's scruples about
presenting himself, and Wilfrid paced a sentinel measure awaiting the
reply. "Free to-morrow," he repeated, with a glance at his watch under a
lamp: and thus he soliloquized: "What a time that fellow is! Yes, I can
be free to-morrow if I will. I wonder what the deuce Gambier had to do
in Monmouthshire. If he has been playing with my sister's reputation, he
shall have short shrift. That fellow Braintop sees her now--my little
Emilia! my bird! She won't have changed her dress till she has dined.
If she changes it before she goes out--by Jove, if she wears it to-night
before all those people, that'll mean 'Good-bye' to me: 'Addio, caro,' as
those olive women say, with their damned cold languor, when they have
given you up. She's not one of them! Good God! she came into the room
looking like a little Empress. I'll swear her hand trembled when I went,
though! My sisters shall see her in that dress. She must have a clever
lady's maid to have done that knot to her back hair. She's getting as
full of art as any of them--Oh! lovely little darling! And when she
smiles and holds out her hand! What is it--what is it about her? Her
upper lip isn't perfectly cut, there's some fault with her nose, but I
never saw such a mouth, or such a face. "Free to-morrow?" Good God!