'All these things,' said Mr. Dennel, 'are fit for nothing but to bring a man to ruin. The main chance is all that is worth thinking of. 'Tis money makes the mare to go; and I don't know any thing that's to be done without it.'
'Money!' exclaimed Macdersey, 'tis the thing under heaven I hold in the most disdain. It won't give me a moment's concern never to see its colour again. I vow solemnly, if it were not just for the pleasures of the table, and a jolly glass with a friend, and a few horses in one's stable, and a little ready cash in one's purse, for odd uses, I should not care if the mint were sunk under ground to-morrow; money is what I most despise of all.'
'That's talking out of reason,' said Mr. Dennel, walking out of the shop with great disgust.
'Why, if I was to speak,' said Mr. Dubster, encouraged to come forward, by an observation so much to his own comprehension and taste as the last; 'I can't but say I think the same; for money—'
'Keep your distance, sir!' cried the fiery Ensign, 'keep your distance, I tell you! if you don't wish I should say something to you pretty cutting.'
This broke up the party, which else the lounging spirit of the place, and the general consent by which all descriptions of characters seem determined to occupy any spot whatever, to avoid a moment's abode in their lodgings, would still have detained till the dinner hour had forced to their respective homes. To suppress all possibility of further dissention, Mrs. Arlbery put Miss Dennel under the care of Macdersey, and bid him attend her towards Mount Pleasant.
Mr. Dubster, having stared after them some time in silence, called out: 'Keep my distance! I can't but say but what I think that young Captain the rudest young gentleman I ever happened to light upon! however, if he don't like me, I shan't take it much to heart; I can't pretend to say I like him any better; so he may choose; it's much the same to me; it breaks no squares.'
Edgar, almost without knowing it, followed Camilla, but he could displace neither the Baronet nor the Major, who, one with a look of open exultation, and the other with an air of determined perseverance, retained each his post at her side.
He saw that all her voluntary attention was to Sir Sedley, and that the Major had none but what was called for and inevitable. Was this indifference, or security? was she seeking to obtain in the Baronet a new adorer, or to excite jealousy, through his means, in an old one? Silent he walked on, perpetually exclaiming to himself: 'Can it be Camilla, the ingenuous, the artless Camilla, I find it so difficult to fathom, to comprehend, to trust?'
He had not spirits to join Mrs. Arlbery, though he lamented he had not, at once, visited her; since it was now awkward to take such a step without an invitation, which she seemed by no means disposed to offer him. She internally resented the little desire he had ever manifested for her acquaintance; and they had both too much penetration not to perceive how wide either was from being the favourite of the other.