“Faith, Mrs. Cholmondeley, my acquaintance seem to know a good deal more about this duel than I do,” said Dick.
“You will make me lose patience with you,” said she. “But I will be content if you give me your word that you will not tell Mrs. Thrale or Mrs. Crewe what has occurred. You will promise me, Dick? I should die of chagrin if either of that gossiping pair were to come to me with a circumstantial account of the duel.”
“I can give you that promise with all my heart,” said he. “But if you assume that my reticence will prevent either of the ladies from being able to give a circumstantial account of this incident, about which every one seems to be talking, you will show that you know a good deal less about them than you should.”
“You are quite right; they are the grossest of the scandal-mongers—ay, and the least scrupulous,” she cried. “Why, it was only last night that one of them—I shall leave you to guess which—asserted that she had the evidence of her own eyes to prove to her that it was the younger of the Sheridan sons, and not the elder, who was in love with Miss Linley, although the other talked most of his passion. And by the Lord, sir, she was right, if my eyesight be worth anything.”
Dick was always on the alert—as, indeed, he required to be—when engaged in conversation with Mrs. Cholmondeley and the other ladies of the set to which she belonged; but the impudence of her suggestion, made in so direct a fashion, startled him into a blush. He recovered himself in a moment, however, and before her chairmen could comply with her signal to take up the chair, he was smiling most vexatiously, while he said:
“’Twere vain, dear madam, to make an attempt to dissemble before such well-informed ladies. You are fully acquainted not only with the particulars of a duel which never took place, but also with the details of a passion which exists only in the imagination. Ah, Mrs. Cholmondeley, we men are poor creatures in the presence of a lady with much imagination and few scruples.”
He bowed, with his hat in his hand.
“You do well to run away, sir,” said the lady, with a malicious twinkle.
“’Tis the act of a wise man,” said he. “The cat that only scratches a man’s hand, one may play with, but the cat that scratches a man’s heart should be handed over to the gamekeeper to nail upon the door. I, however, prefer to run away.”