Selina was glad to see him, hoping that this visit would make a final settlement of the eternal cent. But she was also struck with the idea that it would be very awkward to ask him if the barkeeper had given him the one she had transmitted to him the evening before. She feared that the gentleman might reply in the affirmative, even if he had not really received it, and she felt a persuasion that it had entirely escaped the memory of Mr. Muddler. Not having sufficient self-possession to help her out of the difficulty, she hastily slipped the old cent back into her work-basket, and looked confused and foolish, and answered incoherently to Mr. Robertson's salutation. He saw her embarrassment, and augured favourably from it: but he cautiously determined not to allow himself to proceed too rapidly.
He commenced the conversation by informing her that sugars had declined a shade, but that coffee was active, and cotton firm; and he then prosed off into a long mercantile story, of which Selina heard and understood nothing: her ideas, when in presence of Mr. Robertson, being now unable to take any other form than that of a piece of copper.
Longing to go for another cent, and regretting that she had not brought down her purse, she sat uneasy and disconcerted: the delighted Robertson pausing in the midst of his tierces of rice, seroons of indigo, carboys of tar, and quintals of codfish, to look at the heightened colour of her cheek, and to give it the interpretation he most desired.
Selina had never thought him so tiresome. Just then came in Miss Peepabout and Miss Doublesight, who, having seen Mr. Robertson through the window, had a curiosity to ascertain what he was saying and doing at Mr. Mansel's. These two ladies were our hero's peculiar aversion, as they had both presumed to lay siege to him, notwithstanding that they were neither young nor handsome. Therefore, he rose immediately and took his leave: though Selina, in the hope of still finding an opportunity to discharge her debt, said to him, anxiously: "Do not go yet, Mr. Robertson." This request nearly elevated the lover to paradise, but not wishing to spoil her by too much compliance, he persevered in departing.
That evening Selina met him at a party given by Mrs. Vincent, one of the leading ladies of Somerford. Thinking of this possibility, and the idea of Mr. Robertson and a cent having now become synonymous, our heroine tied a bright new one in the corner of her pocket-handkerchief, determined to go fully prepared for an opportunity of presenting it to him. When, on arriving at Mrs. Vincent's house, she was shown to the ladies' room, Selina discovered that the cent had vanished, having slipped out from its fastening; and after an ineffectual search on the floor and on the staircase, she concluded that she must have dropped it in the street. The night was very fine, and Mrs. Vincent's residence was so near her father's, that Selina had walked thither, and Mr. Mansel (who had no relish for parties), after conducting her into the principal room, and paying his compliments to the hostess, had slipped off, and returned home to seek a quiet game of backgammon with his next-door neighbour, telling his daughter that he would come for her at eleven o'clock.
Our heroine was dressed with much taste, and looked unusually well. Mr. Robertson's inclination would have led him to attach himself to Selina for the whole evening; but convinced of the depth and sincerity of her regard (as he perceived that she now never saw him without blushing), he deemed it politic to hold back, and not allow himself to be considered too cheap a conquest. Therefore, after making his bow, and informing her that soap was heavy, but that raisins were animated, and that there was a good feeling towards Havana cigars, he withdrew to the opposite side of the room.
But though he divided his tediousness pretty equally among the other ladies, he could not prevent his eyes from wandering almost incessantly towards Selina, particularly when he perceived a remarkably handsome young man, Henry Wynslade, engaged in a very lively conversation with her. Mr. Wynslade, who had recently returned from India, lodged, for the present, at the hotel in which Robertson had located himself; consequently, our hero had some acquaintance with him.
Mrs. Vincent having taken away Wynslade to introduce him to her niece, Mr. Robertson immediately strode across the room, and presented himself in front of Selina. To do him justice, he had entirely forgotten the cent: and he meant not the most distant allusion to it, when, at the end of a long narrative about a very close and fortunate bargain he had once made in rough turpentine, he introduced the well-known adages of "a penny saved is a penny got," and "take care of the pence and the pounds will take care of themselves."
"Pence and cents are nearly the same," thought the conscious Selina. She had on her plate some of the little printed rhymes that, being accompanied by bonbons, and enveloped in coloured paper, go under the denomination of secrets or mottoes. These delectable distichs were most probably the leisure effusions of the poet kept by Mr. and Mrs. Packwood, of razor-strop celebrity, and from their ludicrous silliness frequently cause much diversion among the younger part of the company.
In her confusion on hearing Mr. Robertson talk of pence, Selina began to distribute her mottoes among the ladies in her vicinity, and, without looking at it, she unthinkingly presented one to her admirer, as he stood stiff before her. A moment after he was led away by Mr. Vincent, to be introduced to a stranger: and in a short time the company adjourned to the supper-room.