"I said apparently, not really," continued Laurence. "To defeat such an attempt as this is the easiest thing in the world, if you only have the savoir faire, and will use the weapons in your armoury. Even in the most purely pastoral times, love in marriage was not all that was requisite for happiness. If Phyllis had done nothing but sit at Corydon's feet and worship him--if she had not been his companion and friend as well as his wife,--now talking to him about the crop in the forty-acre pasture, now telling him of the pigs eating the beech-nuts under that wide-spreading tree where that lazy Tityrus used to lie in the summer; moreover, if Corydon had not had his farm and flock to attend to,--he would at a very early period of their married life have left her solitary, while he sported with Amaryllis in the shade, or played with the tangle of Neaera's hair."
He stopped as he marked her half-puzzled, half-frightened look. "Dear, dear Lady Mitford," he continued, "let me drop parable and mystery, and speak plainly to you. I am going away to-morrow or the next day, and should probably have left with this unsaid; but the accidental sight of your sorrow has emboldened me to speak, and--and you know I would say nothing which you should not hear."
At the last words she seemed reassured, and with a little effort she said, "Speak on, pray, Colonel Alsager; I know I can trust you entirely."
"Thank you," he said, with a very sweet smile; "I am very proud of that belief. Now listen: you married when you were a child, and you have not yet put away childish things. Your notion of married life is a childish romance, and you are childishly beginning to be frightened because a cloud has come over it. In his wife a man wants a companion as well as a plaything, and some one who will amuse as well as worship him. Your husband is essentially a man of this kind; his resources within himself are of the very smallest kind; he cares very little for field-sports, and he conjugates the verb s'ennuyer throughout the entire day. Consequently, and not unnaturally, he becomes readily charmed when any one amuses him and takes him out of himself,--more especially if that some one be pretty and otherwise agreeable. Why should not you be that some one? Why should not you, dropping--pardon me for saying it--a little of the visible worship with which you now regard him,--why should not you be his constant companion, riding with him, making him drive you out, planning schemes for his amusement? If you once do this, and get him to look upon you as his companion as well as his wife, there will be no more cause for tears, Lady Mitford, depend upon it."
"Do you think so?--do you really think so? Oh, I would give anything for that!"
"And get him to London quickly, above all things. You are to have your opera-box, I heard you say; and there is the Park; and in this your first season you will never be allowed to be quiet for an instant."
"Yes; I think you're right. I will ask Charley to go back to town at once. There will be no difficulty, I think. The Charterises are gone; Mrs. Masters and the Tyrrells go to-morrow; and Captain Bligh is going to Scotland to look at some shooting-quarters for Charley in the autumn. There are only--only the Hammonds."
"I really do not think it necessary to take them into account in making your arrangements," said Laurence. "Besides, unless I'm very much mistaken, when Mrs. Hammond finds the house emptying, Mr. Hammond's bronchitis will either be so much better that there will be no harm in his going to town, or so much worse that there will be imperative necessity for his consulting a London physician."
"And now, Colonel Alsager, how can I sufficiently thank you for all this kind advice?" said Georgie hesitatingly.
"By acting up to it, dear Lady Mitford. I hope to hear the best account of your health and spirits."