The servant returns, shaking her head. "Missus, da'h lays yander, so in all fixins dat no tellin' which most done gone. Mas'r seems done gone, sartin!" says the servant, her face glowing with apprehension.
The significant phrase alarms Franconia. She repairs to the hall, and commences restoring the sleepers to consciousness. The gentlemen are doggedly obstinate; they refuse to be disturbed. She recognises the face of one whose business it is to reduce men to the last stage of poverty. Her sensitive nature shudders at the sight, as she views him with a curl of contempt on her lip. "Oh, M'Carstrow,—M'Carstrow!" she whispers, and taking him by the hand, shakes it violently. M'Carstrow, with countenance ghastly and inflamed, begins to raise his sluggish head. He sees Franconia pensively gazing in his face; and yet he enquires who it is that disturbs the progress of his comforts. "Only me!" says the good woman, soliciting him to leave his companions and accompany her.
Oh, you, is it?" he replies, grumblingly, rising on his right elbow, and rubbing his eyes with his left hand. Wildly and vacantly he stares round the hall, as if aroused from a trance, and made sensible of his condition.
"Yes, me-simply me, who, lost to your affections, is made most unhappy-" Franconia would proceed, but is interrupted by her muddling swain.
"Unhappy! unhappy!" says the man of southern chivalry, making sundry irresistible nods. "Propagator of mischief, of evil contentions, of peace annihilators. Ah! ah! ah! Thinking about the lustre of them beggared relations. It always takes fools to make a fuss over small things: an angel wouldn't make a discontented woman happy." Franconia breaks out into a paroxysm of grief, so unfeeling is the tone in which he addresses her. He is a southern gentleman,—happily not of New England in his manners, not of New England in his affections, not of New England in his domestic associations. He thinks Franconia very silly, and scouts with derision the idea of marrying a southern gentleman who likes enjoyment, and then making a fuss about it. He thinks she had better shut up her whimpering,—learn to be a good wife upon southern principles.
"Husbands should be husbands, to claim a wife's respect; and they should never forget that kindness makes good wives. Take away the life springs of woman's love, and what is she? What is she with her happiness gone, her pride touched, her prospects blasted? What respect or love can she have for the man who degrades her to the level of his own loathsome companions?" Franconia points to those who lie upon the floor, repulsive, and reeking with the fumes of dissipation. "There are your companions," she says.
"Companions?" he returns, enquiringly. He looks round upon them with surprise. "Who are those fellows you have got here?" he enquires, angrily.
"You brought them to your own home; that home you might make happy-"
"Not a bit of it! They are some of your d-d disreputable relations."
"My relations never violate the conduct of gentlemen." "No; but they sponge on me. These my companions!" looking at them inquisitively. "Oh, no! Don't let us talk about such things; I'ze got fifteen hundred dollars and costs to pay for that nigger gal you were fool enough to get into a fit about when we were married. That's what I'ze got for my good-heartedness." M'Carstrow permits his very gentlemanly southern self to get into a rage. He springs to his feet suddenly, crosses and recrosses the hall like one frenzied with excitement. Franconia is frightened, runs up the stairs, and into her chamber, where, secreting herself, she fastens the door. He looks wistfully after her, stamping his foot, but he will not follow. Too much of a polished gentleman, he will merely amuse himself by running over the gamut of his strongest imprecations. The noise creates general alarm among his companions, who, gaining their uprights, commence remonstrating with him on his rude conduct, as if they were much superior beings.