I believe I smiled myself at the character assigned. But "isn't life a stage?" and in nothing more so than the fact that no man can choose his part, but must just take what the great stage-manager—Fate—assigns him; and it is just as cruel to ridicule the failures and shortcomings we often witness in public men as to shout, in gallery-fashion, at some poor devil actor obliged to play a gentleman with broken boots and patched pantaloons.
There were, indeed, two difficulties, neither of them inconsiderable, in the matter. One was money. The journey would needs be costly. Posting abroad is to the full as expensive as at home. The other was as to Mrs. Dodd. How would she take it? I was bound over in the very heaviest recognizances to secrecy. Mrs. G. insisted that I alone should be the depositary of her secret; and she was wise there, for Mrs. D. would have revealed it to Betty Cobb before she slept. What if she should take a jealous turn? It was true the Mary Jane affair had made her rather ashamed of herself, but time was wearing off the effect. Mrs. Gore Hampton was a handsome woman, and there would be a kind of éclat in such a rivalry! I knew well, Tom, that if she once mounted this hobby, there was nothing could stop her. All her visions of fashionable introductions, all the bright charms of high society, to which Mrs. G.'s intimacy was to lead, would melt away, like a mirage, before the high wind of her angry indignation.
She would have put Mrs. G. in the dock, and arraigned her like any common offender. It was not without reason, then, that I dreaded such a catastrophe; and in a kind of semi-serious, semi-jocose way, I told Mrs. Gore of my misgivings.
She took it beautifully, Tom. She did n't laugh as if the thing was ridiculous, and as if the idea of Kenny Dodd performing "Amoroso" was a glaring absurdity. "Not at all," she gravely said; "I have been thinking over that, and, as you remark, it is a difficulty." Shall I own to you, Tom, that the confession sent a strange thrill through me; and like a man selected to lead a forlorn hope, I still felt that the choice redounded to my credit?
"I think, however," said she, after a pause, "if you confided the matter to my management, if you leave me to explain to Mrs. Dodd, I shall be able, without revealing more than I wish, to satisfy her as to the object of our journey."
I heartily assented to an arrangement so agreeable; I even promised not to see Mrs. D. before we started, lest any unfortunate combination of circumstances might interfere with our project.
The pecuniary embarrassment I communicated to Lord George. He quite agreed with me that I could n't possibly allude to it to Mrs. G. "In all likelihood," said he, "she will just hand you a book of blank checks, or Herries's circulars, and say, 'Pray do me the favor to take the trouble off my hands.' It is what she usually does with any of her friends with whom she is sufficiently intimate; for, as I told you, she is a 'perfect child about money.'" I might have told him that, so far as having very little of it, so was I too.
"But supposing," said I, "that, in the bustle of departure, and in the preoccupation of other thoughts, she should n't remember to do this; such is likely enough, you know?"
"Oh, nothing more so," said he, laughing. "She is the most absent creature in the world."
"In that case," said I, "one ought to be, in a measure, prepared."