“I don’t think you do,” returned D’Almayne, his sarcastic tone expressing such unmistakable contempt that Lord Alfred actually winced as if in pain.
“I don’t think you have the faintest glimmer of my meaning. You don’t suppose I intend you to order a chaise and four, and run off with pretty Mrs. Coverdale to the Continent, do you? My ideas are much less alarming, I can assure you! par exemple—your friend Harry is a physical force man; he is a mighty hunter, a dead shot; he loves only his dogs and his horses; but requires a Joe Manton to ensure him good sport, and a pretty wife to sit at the head of his table: Mrs. Coverdale, on the other hand, has a soul—reads Tennyson, feels her husband’s neglect, and pines for some one who will appreciate her and sympathize with her; you, in the kindness of your heart, pity her, and knowing you can afford her the consolations of congeniality, obligingly make up for her good man’s deficiency; therefore, you read poetry with her, explain the obscure passages which neither she, you, nor any one else can understand; her mind reposes on your superior intelligence; she trusts you, and confides to you important secrets,—the exact age of her dearest female friend, whom she suspects of designs upon your heart, the dress she is going to wear at the next fancy ball,—and eventually, with heightened colour and averted eyes, the history of that ring with the turquoise forget-me-not, together with a biographical sketch of the noble giver—showing how he lived pathetically, and died in the odour of heroism, fighting at the head of his regiment in the Punjaub, the centre of a select circle of slaughtered foemen; which latter confidence may be considered as the latchkey to the fair lady’s heart, ensuring you admittance at all times and seasons.”
“And having attained this agreeable position, how long do you expect so pleasant a state of things to last, and what is to be the end of it?” inquired Telemachus.
“Oh! until she has got rid of her romance, and you of your diffidence; by which time you will have grown mutually tired of each other, and the London season will have come to an end,” was Mentor’s oracular reply. Telemachus mused, lit a fresh cigar, and mused again. He liked the idea, had a faint suspicion it might be wrong, but was quite sure it would be very pleasant. Mentor, thinking this a promising frame of mind in which to leave his pupil, would not weaken the force of his argument by vain repetitions, so made an engagement to meet again in the evening, and departed. And while les petites moustaches noires wounded female hearts as he passed down courtly St. James’s Street, the spirit of the good young man, their wearer, glowed within him, and—
“As he walked by himself,
He talked to himself,
And thus to himself said he!”
“Ha! ha! Milord Courtland, you are mine—your purse, your credit, your influence—all are mine! But what a child it is! what a baby! Sacré! at his age I was winning twenty pounds a day at billiards in New Orleans!—And you, Harry Coverdale, mon ami, I will teach you to watch me with black looks when I am conversing with la belle millionaire; you had better attend to your own wife now—young, pretty, and neglected! Le petit Alfred has a fair game before him, if he have but wit to play it—yes! all goes as it should! fortune fills the sails! there is a cool head and a steady hand at the helm: vogue la galère!”