As soon as the lad was out of hearing, David continued: “It was not worth while to mortify him. The fact is, I hired him to carry it; but, bless you, the first mile he began to go down by the head, and would have foundered; so we shifted our cargoes.” This amused Kenealy, who laughed good-humoredly. On this, David laughed for company.
“There,” cried his inamorata, with rapture, “that is Mr. Dodd all over; thinks of everybody, high or low, before himself.” There was a grunt somewhere behind her; her quick ear caught it; she turned round like a thing on a pivot, and slapped the nearest face. It happened to be Fountain's; so she continued with such a treacle smile, “Don't you remember, sir, how he used to teach your cub mathematics gratis?” The sweet smile and the keen contemporaneous scratch confounded Mr. Fountain for a second. As soon as he revived he said stiffly, “We can all appreciate Mr. Dodd.”
Having thus established her Adonis on a satisfactory footing, she broke out all over graciousness again, and, smiling and chatting, led her guests beneath the hospitable roof.
But one of these guests did not respond to her cheerful strain. The Norman knight was full of bitterness. Mr. Talboys drew his friend aside and proposed to him to go back again. The senior was aghast. “Don't be so precipitate,” was all that he could urge this time. “Confound the fellow! Yes, if that is the man she prefers to you, I will go home with you to-morrow, and the vile hussy shall never enter my doors again.”
In this mind the pair went devious to their dressing-rooms.
One day a witty woman said of a man that “he played the politician about turnips and cabbages.” That might be retorted (by a snob and brute) on her own sex in general, and upon Mrs. Bazalgette in particular. This sweet lady maneuvered on a carpet like Marlborough on the south of France. She was brimful of resources, and they all tended toward one sacred object, getting her own way. She could be imperious at a pinch and knock down opposition; but she liked far better to undermine it, dissolve it, or evade it. She was too much of a woman to run straight to her je-le-veux, so long as she could wind thitherward serpentinely and by detour. She could have said to Mr. Hardie, “You will take down Lucy to dinner,” and to Mr. Dodd, “You will sit next me”; but no, she must mold her males—as per sample.
To Mr. Fountain she said, “Your friend, I hear, is of old family.”
“Came in with the Conqueror, madam.”
“Then he shall take me down: that will be the first step toward conquering me—ha! ha!” Fountain bowed, well pleased.
To Mr. Hardie she said, “Will you take down Lucy to-day? I see she enjoys your conversation. Observe how disinterested I am.”