“The second house from the street in the Grand Parade is where I am lodging,” said she. “You will not be later than four o’clock, unless you choose to come very much later and share my humble supper?” she added.
But the boy said he thought that it would be wiser for him to go while the daylight lasted.
And perhaps he was right.
CHAPTER XIII
It was not within the bounds of possibility that the fascinating Mrs. Abington should remain for the rest of the evening seated by the side of young Mr. Linley in the Assembly Rooms. It was, as a matter of fact, thought very remarkable that she and he were permitted to have so long a conversation without interruption. This circumstance, however, did not prevent the young man’s resenting deeply the intrusion of Mr. Walpole and his friend Gilly Williams upon the artistic and philosophical duologue in which he was taking, as he fancied, the prominent part. (He did not doubt that philosophy as well as art formed the subject of his discourse with the charming lady.)
He thought that he might tire out Mr. Walpole and his friend, who had the bad taste to push themselves forward—they did not even think it necessary to have philosophy and art as their excuse—to the destruction of that seclusion which he had no trouble in perceiving the lady loved dearly. He found, however, that Mr. Walpole and Mr. Williams represented merely a beginning of the obtrusive elements of the mixed society at Bath; for before they had got rid of more than a few brilliant phrases embodying some neatly turned but empty compliments—he was convinced that Mrs. Abington, the actress, was just the sort of woman to detest compliments—quite a number of men, well known in the world of art as well as of fashion (to say nothing of philosophy), were bowing before her and delivering themselves of further compliments in the ears of the lady.
There was Mr. George Selwyn, for instance, who had some coffee-house jargon for her; its delivery necessitated his putting his face very close to her ear, and when she heard it, she gave a delightful simulation of a lady who is shocked—Tom actually believed that she was shocked. And then that awkward little Dr. Goldsmith, who, strange to say, was a great friend of Lord Clare and Bishop Percy and Captain Horneck of the Guards, and others of the most fastidious people in England—people who had it in their power to pick and choose their associates—came up with some witticism so delicately tinged with irony that no one laughed for several seconds. Dr. Goldsmith had to tell her that he had received a letter from Mr. Colman in which he had promised to put his new comedy in rehearsal immediately.