"Yes, but that's the difference. I shan't go away, or let you, till you say 'Yes.'"
"I couldn't, really," said she, treating it as a joke. "So we shall be starved to death, and covered up by birds, like the babes in the wood."
"No; we will live happy ever afterwards," passing an arm round her waist with an air of proprietorship. "Shall I tell Colonel Rolleston to-night?"
"Oh, this is too serious," cried Bluebell, energetically freeing herself. "If you really want an answer to such stuff, most decidedly 'No.'"
Jack, in furious mortification, for he saw she was now thoroughly in earnest, poured forth reproaches, accusing her of coquetry and purposely deceiving him, caring not if his words were just or unjust; and Bluebell's conscience was not altogether guiltless. Perhaps her own disappointment made her better understand his; for she waited patiently till the torrent of words had a little subsided, and then, laying her hand persuasively on his arm, said with gentle archness,--
"Don't be angry, Jack. What should we live on? _I_ haven't a penny, _you_ can't always pay your mess bill, and I am afraid an officer's wife couldn't go on the strength of the regiment, and take in washing."
"I didn't think you were so mercenary," said he, looking into her liquid eyes, that were fast quenching the angry light in his.
"I suppose I must be," said Bluebell, _naively_; "for I hate poverty so. You know my father married--just as you want to do--a pretty girl without a dollar to her name."
"You are pretty, my darling, and you know it," said Jack, bitterly.
"I don't know why people care for me if I am not, for I'm afraid there isn't much in me; and at the age of seventeen one may at least lay claim to _la beauté du diable_. Well, as I was going to say, my father married just as imprudently, and got disinherited for his pains."
"No fear of that with me," said Jack. "I am number seven, and they have all good constitutions. Destiny has decreed that I must live by my wits, without even providing me with any."
"So you see," continued she, "as we have neither money nor brains, it is no use thinking of it!"
"You are wise in your generation," said Jack, darkly. "You are pretty enough to get a rich husband any day; but whoever it is, for Heaven's sake, don't let it be Du Meresq!"