nother has them--a
taller man than your humble servant has won them." And the colonel made
his cousin a low bow.

"A taller man, cousin Esmond!" says she. "A man of spirit would have
scaled the wall, sir, and seized them! A man of courage would have fought
for 'em, not gaped for 'em."

"A duke has but to gape and they drop into his mouth," says Esmond, with
another low bow.

"Yes, sir," says she, "a duke _is_ a taller man than you. And why should I
not be grateful to one such as his grace, who gives me his heart and his
great name? It is a great gift he honours me with; I know 'tis a bargain
between us; and I accept it, and will do my utmost to perform my part of
it. 'Tis no question of sighing and philandering between a nobleman of his
grace's age and a girl who hath little of that softness in her nature. Why
should I not own that I am ambitious, Harry Esmond; and if it be no sin in
a man to covet honour, why should a woman too not desire it? Shall I be
frank with you, Harry, and say that if you had not been down on your
knees, and so humble, you might have fared better with me? A woman of my
spirit, cousin, is to be won by gallantry, and not by sighs and rueful
faces. All the time you are worshipping and singing hymns to me, I know
very well I am no goddess, and grow weary of the incense. So would you
have been weary of the goddess too--when she was called Mrs. Esmond, and
got out of humour because she had not pin-money enough, and was forced to
go about in an old gown. Eh! cousin, a goddess in a mob-cap, that has to
make her husband's gruel, ceases to be divine--I am sure of it. I should
have been sulky and scolded; and of all the proud wretches in the world
Mr. Esmond is the proudest, let me tell him that. You never fall into a
passion; but you never forgive, I think. Had you been a great man, you
might have been good humoured; but being nobody, sir, you are too great a
man for me; and I'm afraid of you, cousin--there; and I won't worship you,
and you'll never be happy except with a woman who will. Why, after I
belonged to you, and after one of my tantrums, you would have put the
pillow over my head some night, and smothered me, as the black man does
the woman in the play that you're so fond of. What's the creature's
name?--Desdemona. You would, you little black-eyed Othello!"

"I think I should, Beatrix," says the colonel.

"And I want no such ending. I intend to live to be a hundred, and to go to
ten thousand