Page:"The Mummy" Volume 1.djvu/117

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
THE MUMMY.
103

don't answer me, Edric. Do you think you have eloquence enough to persuade your mistress to relinquish the prospect of a throne in your behalf?"

"I would not wish her to make any sacrifice upon my account," replied Edric.

"Confound such coldness! why, when I was a young man, my heart would have beat like a pendulum in perpetual motion at such a proposition. Go to her, man! and try your fortune.—

'She is a woman, therefore to be wooed;
She is a woman, therefore to be won;'

or rather what, perhaps, will be better, I will send for her here, and tell her my will. Egad! I have a mind to surprise Edmund, and let you grace his triumph as bride and bridegroom."

"Rosabella would never consent to such a proposition," exclaimed Edric, willing to postpone the dreaded explanation as long as possible.

"I think not," resumed the duke, "if you woo her with that face. "However, you need