'True, Sir Sedley. And you men are all so disinterested, so pure in your benevolence, so free from any spirit of encroachment, that no possible ill consequence could ensue from such an arrangement. When once a fair lady had made you a civil courtesy, you would wholly forget you had ever obliged her. And you would let her walk her ways, and forget it also: especially if, by chance, she happened to be young and pretty.'
This raillery was interrupted by the appearance of Edgar in an opposite box. 'Ah!' cried Mrs. Arlbery, 'look but at that piece of congelation that nothing seems to thaw! Enter the lists against him, dear Clarendel! He has stationed himself there merely to watch and discountenance her. I hate him heartily; yet he rolls in wealth, and she has nothing. I must bring them, therefore, together, positively: for though a husband ... such a fastidious one especially ... is not what I would recommend to her for happiness, 'tis better than poverty. And, after his cold and selfish manner, I am convinced he loves her. He is evidently in pursuit of her, though he wants generosity to act openly. Work him but with a little jealousy, and you will find me right.'
'Me, my dear madam? me, my divine Mrs. Arlbery? Alas! with what chance? No! see where enters the gallant Major. Thence must issue those poignant darts that newly vivify the expiring embers of languishing love.'
'Now don't talk such nonsense when I am really serious. You are the very man for the purpose: because, though you have no feeling, Mandlebert does not know you are without it. But those Officers are too notoriously unmeaning to excite a moment's real apprehension. They have a new dulcinea wherever they newly quarter, and carry about the few ideas they possess from damsel to damsel, as regularly as from town to town.'
The Major was now in the box, and the conversation ended.
He endeavoured, as usual, to monopolize Camilla; but while her thoughts were all upon Edgar, the whole she could command of her attention was bestowed upon Sir Sedley.
This was not unobserved by Edgar, who now again wavered in believing she loved the Major: but the doubt brought with it no pleasure; it led him only the more to contemn her. Does she turn, thought he, thus, from one to the other, with no preference but of accident or caprice? Is her favour thus light of circulation? Is it now the mawkish Major, and now the coxcomb Clarendel? Already is she thus versed in the common dissipation of coquetry?... O, if so, how blest has been my escape! A coquette wife!...
His heart swelled, and his eye no longer sought her.
At night, as soon as she went to her own room, Mrs. Arlbery followed her, and said: 'My dear Miss Tyrold, I know much better than you how many six-pences and three-pences are perpetually wanted at places such as these. Do suffer me to be your banker. What shall we begin our account with?'