While Dick watched the little comedy, he heard a greeting laugh behind him, and, turning, he found himself face to face with Captain Mathews, whom he had known for some time, and thoroughly disliked.
He was surprised to see the man, for he heard that he had left Bath the day after it was announced that Betsy Linley was to marry Mr. Long. He certainly had not been seen in public since that day.
“Will they come, Sheridan—will they come, do you think?” asked Mathews, with a note of apprehension in his voice.
“I have no idea of whom you are speaking; but whoever they are, I think I may safely prophesy that they will come,” said Dick.
“Thank Heaven!” said Mathews. “You must know that I mean Miss Linley and her grandfather, whom she is going to marry. But do you think that the marriage will ever come off? Oh, a pretty set of lovers that girl got around her—not a man of spirit among them all, or that old fool Long would have got six inches of cold steel through his vitals! I am the only man among them all, Sheridan—I am the only man of spirit left in Bath, as you’ll see this day, whether they come or not.”
“What do you mean by that threat, sir?” said Dick quickly.
The man laughed.
“I haven’t said aught to wound your feelings, have I?” he said. “Oh no! I don’t mean to say that you’re not a fellow of spirit, Sheridan, only you never loved Miss Linley as the others pretended to do. They showed their spirit by slinking off, sir, just when they should have stayed. You didn’t see me slink off, Sheridan? No, I am here, and here I mean to stay until the end of this affair has come, and it cannot be far off after to-day. I tell you, Dick Sheridan, that I am not the man to lie tamely down, as the rest of them did, and let Walter Long and Elizabeth Linley walk over my body to the church portal!”
“You are pleased to talk in the strain of a riddle, and that, Mr. Mathews, is an infernally dull strain, let me assure you,” said Dick. “Come, sir, if you have anything to say, say it out plainly, like a man. But first I venture to remind you that Mr. Linley and his family have been for years my friends, and also that Mr. Long honours me by his friendship, and I promise you that anything you say of them that verges on an affront I shall think it my duty to resent. Now, Mr. Mathews, say what you have to say.”
Mathews looked at him for some time; then he laughed as he had laughed before.