nhappily, I
know their value, and am not likely to be duped by them."

Geraldine's face flushed as deep a rose hue as the geraniums nodding
their heads in at the windows.

"Coquetteries?--duped? What do you mean?"

"You know well enough what. All I warn you is, never try them again on
me--never come near me any more with your innocent smiles and your lying
lips, or, by Heaven, Geraldine Vane, I may say what I think of you in
plainer words than suit the delicacy of a lady's ears!"

Geraldine's eyes flashed fire; from rose-hued as the geraniums she
changed to the dead white of the Guelder roses beside them.

"Colonel Fairlie, you are mad, I think! If you only came here to insult
me----"

"I had better leave? I agree with you. Good morning."

Wherewith Fairlie took his hat and whip, bowed himself out, and,
throwing himself across his horse, tore away many miles beyond Norwich,
I should say, and rode into the stable-yard at twelve o'clock that
night, his horse with every hair wringing and limb trembling at the
headlong pace he had been ridden; such a midnight gallop as only
Mazeppa, or a Border rider, or Turpin racing for his life, or a man
vainly seeking to leave behind him some pursuing ghost of memory or
passion, ever took before.

We saw little of him for the next few days. Luckily for him, he was
employed to purchase several strings of Suffolk horses for the corps,
and he rode about the country a good deal, and went over to Newmarket,
and to the Bury horse fair, inspecting the cattle, glad, I dare say, of
an excuse to get away.

"I feel nervous, terribly nervous; do give me the Seltzer and hock, Tom.
They wonder at the fellows asking for beer before their execution. I
don't; and if a fellow wants it to keep his spirits up before he's
hanged, he may surely want it before he's married, for one's a swing and
a crash, and it's all over and done most likely before you've time to
know anything about it; but the other you walk into so deliberately,
superintend the sacrifice of yourself, as it were, like that old cove
Seneca; feel yourself rolling down-hill like Regulus, with all the
horrid nails of the 'domesticities' pricking you in every corner; see
life ebbing away from you; all the sunshine of life, as poets have it,
fading, sweetly but surely, from your grasp, and Death, _alias_ the
Matrimonial Black Cap, coming down ruthlessly on your devoted heads. I
feel low--shockingly low. Pass me the Seltzer, Tom, do!"