"Why, I must say, he was not complimentary. These fellows, you are aware, have a vocabulary of their own, and when setting up a defence for a pretty woman, married at seventeen, they pitch into one's little frailties at a very cruel rate. Not exactly that the narrative is very detrimental to a man's future prospects; what really damages you is what they call cruelty, and your wife's maid—particularly if she be a Frenchwoman—can always prove this."
"Indeed!" exclaimed James, in some astonishment.
"To be sure she can. Why, everything that thwarts her mistress in anything—good, bad, or indifferent—is cruelty in the French sense. You are rather given to fast acquaintances; you bring home with you to supper, some three or four times a week, detachments of that respectable company one meets at Tattersall's Yard, or in the Turf Club; chicken hazard and the coulisses of the opera are amongst your weaknesses; you have a taste for sport, and would rather take the odds against the favorite than lay out your spare cash at Howell and James's. That 's cruelty! When regularly done up in town, you make a bolt for Boulogne, or rush down to your shooting-box in the Highlands. That 's more cruelty, and neglect besides! Terribly pressed for money, you try to bully your wife's uncle, one of the trustees to her settlement, and threaten to kick him downstairs. Gross cruelty! Harder up again, you pledge her diamonds. Shocking cruelty! Cleared out and sold up, you suggest the propriety of her sending away the French maid, and travelling up to Paris alone. That's monstrous cruelty! And, in fact, all together establish a clear justification for anything that may befall you. Besides this, Jemmy, if you marry a girl of good family, she is sure to have either a father, an uncle, or a brother, or perhaps some three or four cousins in the Lords; now, whatever comes off, they oppose your bill, and as their Lordships only want to hear your story, to listen to the piquant narrative of domestic differences and conjugal jarrings, nobody cares a straw whether you succeed or not. Give me a light, Jim."
They both continued to puff their cigars for some time in silence, during which my sufferings rose to absolute torture; for, in addition to the shocking circumstances of my own situation, was now the fact of my having overheard a most private conversation.
"So they threw out your bill?" asked James, after a pause.
"Deferred judgment!" replied the other, puffing, "which comes to pretty nigh the same thing. Asked for further evidence, explanations, what not! Cursed cigars! don't draw at all."
"They 're Bollard's best Havannahs."
"Well, perhaps I've been unlucky in my choice; if so, it's not the first time, Jem;" and he laughed heartily at the notion. "I say, take care and don't say anything about this affair of mine."
"But it will be in all the papers. The 'Times' will give it to-morrow or next day."
"Not a bit of it,—had a private hearing, old fellow. Too many good names compromised to have the thing made town talk,—you understand."