“Really,” answered she, “I don’t know;-I’m afraid it’s monstrous hot; besides (putting her hand to her forehead) I an’t half well; it’s quite horrid to have such weak nerves!-the least thing in the world discomposes me: I declare, that man’s oddness has given me such a shock,-I don’t know when I shall recover from it. But I’m a sad, weak creature;-don’t you think I am, my Lord?”
“O, by no means,” answered he, “your Ladyship is merely delicate,-and devil take me if ever I had the least passion for an Amazon.”
“I have the honour to be quite of your Lordship’s opinion,” said Mr. Lovel, looking maliciously at Mrs. Selwyn; “for I have an insuperable aversion to strength, either of body or mind, in a female.”
“Faith, and so have I,” said Mr. Coverley; “for egad, I’d as soon see a woman chop wood, as hear her chop logic.”
“So would every man in his senses,” said Lord Merton, “for a woman wants nothing to recommend her but beauty and good-nature; in everything else she is either impertinent or unnatural. For my part, deuce take me if ever I wish to hear a word of sense from a woman as long as I live!”
“It has always been agreed,” said Mrs. Selwyn, looking round her with the utmost contempt, “that no man ought to be connected with a woman whose understanding is superior to his own. Now I very much fear, that to accommodate all this good company, according to such a rule, would be utterly impracticable, unless we should choose subjects from Swift’s hospital of idiots.”
How many enemies, my dear Sir, does this unbounded severity excite! Lord Merton, however, only whistled; Mr. Coverley sang; and Mr. Lovel, after biting his lips, said “‘Pon honour, that lady-if she was not a lady-I should be half tempted to observe,-that there is something,-in such severity,-that is rather, I must say,-rather oddish.”
Just then a servant brought Lady Louisa a note upon a waiter, which is a ceremony always used to her Ladyship; and I took the opportunity of this interruption to the conversation to steal out of the room.
I went immediately to the parlour, which I found quite empty; for I did not dare walk in the garden, after what Mrs. Selwyn had said.
In a few minutes a servant announced Mr. Macartney; saying, as he entered the room, that he would acquaint Lord Orville he was there.