"Then what should we do?" she asked earnestly. "We should choose a box for two and sit with our elbows over a very small table and look at each other just as we are looking now." "Yes! go on," cried Phyllida clapping her hands. "Then we should call for chicken-wings and eat our supper and listen to the new song and the musick of the orchestra playing the finest tunes high up among a thousand sparkling coloured lamps and watch the masqueraders and row back to Westminster under a great moon." Mr. Vernon was so much inspired by the interest of his listener that he began to believe in the reality of this proposed idyll, quite forgetting that it was a chastened account of a hundred similar adventures enjoyed with the domino passion of a night. "Vauxhall must be the properest place in the world," sighed Phyllida, "I doubt everybody wears their jewels." "Everybody," replied her lover with a quick glance. "I should wear my pearls." "Your pearls?" "My necklace that was left by Grandmother Courteen. Mamma won't let me wear it till I'm one-and-twenty." "But supposing you ran away?" "Oh I should never dare. I should be frightened." Vernon changed the subject, perceiving at present the courtship was nothing more serious than a Springtime diversion. He told himself if the child surrendered to his blandishments, it would be an easy matter to induce her to run away. He must weave a strong web of personal attraction round her, and if her prudence sustained her to the end, why perhaps he might commit himself to a serious offer of marriage. He must inquire further into her fortune. He wished it were not so difficult to put an arm round her waist. Innocence was very well and the prospect of a siege amusing enough at first, but a long deferred capitulation would be immensely fatiguing; and yet how charming she was. Not for anything would he have her different. "When we are wed," he began and for the first time echoed her lately expressed hopes. In some way he felt that she would be to blame, if harm came of it. She had given the cue. "When we are wed, we shall go to routs." "But we shall be old and wise and able to go then. It won't be near so diverting then as 'twould be now--if you came to the Assemblies." "My angel forgets the risque of discovery." "There could be no more danger in that than there is in sitting here in the Maze." "Come!" "I'm sure if we were prudent nobody would suspect us of a love-affair." "But consider my ardour. 'Twould illuminate the whole matter."