He laughed heartily at her affright, and extolled his own skill in personating a subtle ruffian; declaring he liked to have a touch at all trades, in case of accidents.
'And have you come hither, Lionel, only for this foolish and very unpleasant trick?'
'O no, my dear! this was only for my opening. I have an hundred smart freaks in my head, any one of them worth a little trip to Southampton. Besides, I wanted to know what you were about. How does a certain master Edgar Mandlebert do? Don't blush, child. What a little sly rogue you have been! hey ho? Tears?—My dear Camilla! what's all this?'
She entreated him to make his enquiries of Eugenia.
'Well, you took me in, I promise you. I fully thought the young Baronet had been the man. And, really he's as fine a fellow as I ever saw.'
'Do not speak of him, I beg! O Lionel!—if you knew—' She was going to say, how through your means, that affair has injured me—but she checked complaints which she now regarded as useless, and therefore degrading; and, wiping her eyes, asked if he had yet considered the large sum, for the obligation of which he had made her seem responsible to Sir Sedley, whom she should not know how ever to meet, nor consequently, how ever to visit in the county, till some payment, if not made, were at least arranged.
'Pho, pho, my dear child, don't be so Vellum-like; you'll be fit for nothing, soon, but to file bills and score accounts. What's two hundred to him? Hang him! I wish 'twere as much again—I hate making a fuss about nothing. But come, tell me something to raise my spirits—I am horribly melancholy. I've some notion of making a little sport here with Miss Scare-crow. How does she go on? Waspish as ever?'
'Do tell me, seriously, Lionel, what it is has brought you hither?'
'Two things, my dear. The first of which is the pleasure of seeing you; and the second, is a little amusement I propose myself with old Dr. Hic, Hæc, Hoc. I find Clermont's had rare sport with him already. It's deuced unlucky I did not come sooner.'
'Clermont? When did you see Clermont?'