on't set
you up as a heroine, neither do I offer you your very humble servant
as a hero. But I think you are--well, there, I think you are very
sufficiently good-looking."

"Merci," Miss Blanche said, with another curtsey.

"I think you sing charmingly. I'm sure you're clever. I hope and believe
that you are good-natured, and that you will be companionable."

"And so, provided I bring you a certain sum of money and a seat
in Parliament, you condescend to fling to me your royal
pocket-handkerchief," said Blanche. "Que d'honneur! We used to call your
Highness the Prince of Fairoaks. What an honour to think that I am to
be elevated to the throne, and to bring the seat in Parliament as
backsheesh to the sultan! I am glad I am clever, and that I can play and
sing to your liking; my songs will amuse my lord's leisure."

"And if thieves are about the house," said Pen, grimly pursuing the
simile, "forty besetting thieves in the shape of lurking cares and
enemies in ambush and passions in arms, my Morgiana will dance round
me with a tambourine, and kill all my rogues and thieves with a smile.
Won't she?" But Pen looked as if he did not believe that she would. "Ah,
Blanche," he continued after a pause, "don't be angry; don't be hurt at
my truth-telling.--Don't you see that I always take you at your word?
You say you will be a slave and dance--I say, dance. You say, 'I take
you with what you bring:' I say, 'I take you with what you bring.' To
the necessary deceits and hypocrisies of our life, why add any that are
useless and unnecessary? If I offer myself to you because I think we
have a fair chance of being happy together, and because by your help I
may get for both of us a good place and a not undistinguished name, why
ask me to feign raptures and counterfeit romance, in which neither of
us believe? Do you want me to come wooing in a Prince Prettyman's dress
from the masquerade warehouse, and to pay you compliments like Sir
Charles Grandison? Do you want me to make you verses as in the days when
we were--when we were children? I will if you like, and sell them
to Bacon and Bungay afterwards. Shall I feed my pretty princess with
bonbons?"

"Mais j'adore les bonbons, moi," said the little Sylphide, with a queer
piteous look.

"I can buy a hatful at Fortnum and Mason's for a guinea. And it shall
have its bonbons, its pooty little sugar-plums, that it shall," Pen
said with a bitter smile. "Nay, my dear, nay, my dearest little