"We are bound by no vows, certainly; and, as soon as retirement is become irksome to you, we can go to London."
"Did I say that retirement was grown irksome? Oh, fie! such an idea never entered my thoughts: besides, as this fine ball is over, what should we go to London for?"
"There may be other fine balls, and fine parties, you know."
"True; but really, Helen, I begin to believe you wish to go to London."
"If you do, I do certainly."
"I!—Not I indeed. Ah, Helen! I suspect you are not ingenuous with me; and you do wish to go."
I only smiled: but I soon found that the book did not get forward, that the newspapers were anxiously expected, and that my Spanish master sometimes forgot his task in the indulgence of reverie; and I debated within myself, whether it would not be for our interest and our domestic comfort, to propose to go to London, in order to conceal from him as long as I could that I was not sufficient for his happiness; and that he would live and die a man of the world. I was the more ready to do this, because I wished that my mother should not see my empire was on the decline. Why did I so wish? I hoped it was because I was desirous to spare her any anxiety for my peace; but I fear it also was because I did not like that she should have cause to suspect her choice for me was likely to have proved a better one than my own. (I believe I have observed before, how strong my conviction is, that there is scarcely such a thing in nature as a single motive of action.)
I therefore, in the presence of my mother, hinted a wish to go to London for six weeks. She started, and looked suspiciously at Pendarves; while he, with an odd mixture of surprise, joy, and mortification in his countenance, exclaimed—
"Do I hear right, Helen? Are you, after all you have declared, desirous of going to London?"
"I am: 'Variety is charming,' says the proverb; and here you know it is toujours perdrix!"