SCENE VII
Mistress Bellairs was up betimes. In truth she had slept ill, which was a strange experience for her. What her thirty-seven lovers had never had the power to wring from her—a tear and a sleepless night—this had she given to the one man who loved her not.
She was tortured with anxiety concerning the danger which her caprice (or, as she put it, Lady Standish's inconceivable foolishness) might have brought upon Lord Verney. At daybreak she rang for her maid, and with the eight o'clock chocolate demanded to be posted with all the news of the town. She was of those who possess the talent of making themselves served. The chocolate was to the full as perfumed and creamy as ever, and Miss Lydia was bursting with tidings of importance, as she stood by her lady's couch.
"Well, Lydia, well?" cried her mistress, sharply.
"Oh, lud, ma'am, the whole town's ringing with it! My Lady Standish has been found out. There, I for one never trust those solemn prudes that ever keep their eyes turned up or cast down, and their mouths pursed like cherries. You would not be so proper if there was not a reason for it, I always think."
"Lydia," said Mistress Bellairs, "do not be a fool. Go on; what has Lady Standish been found out in, pray?"
"Oh, ma'am," said Lydia, "it ain't hard to guess. 'Tis what a woman's always found out in, I suppose. But, lud, the shamelessness of it! I hear, ma'am," she came closer to her mistress and bent to whisper, almost trembling with the joy of being tale-bearer to such purpose, "I hear, ma'am, Sir Jasper found Colonel Villiers there yesterday afternoon. Oh, ma'am, such goings on!"
"Pshaw!" said Mistress Kitty.
"Well, they're going to fight, anyhow," cried the girl, "and Sir Jasper tore off the Colonel's wig and beat him about the face with it, ma'am, and the Colonel's been like a madman ever since, and he vows he will shoot him this morning."