Dick frowned.
“Do you mean Mrs. Abington?” he asked. “Why, man, ’tis only her fancy to give some slight attention to Tom Linley. She is an actress, and she may be about to act the part of a boy. They are all wild to do boys’ parts. My father tells me that it was Mrs. Woffington who set the fashion more than twenty years ago.”
“Mrs. Abington! Who cares the toss of a penny what freaks Mrs. Abington may indulge in?” sneered Mr. Halhed.
“No one, except fifty or sixty thousand playgoers in London,” said Dick. “But pray, what is on your mind, Nat? Who is there present apart from her that calls for observation?”
“You are not so acute as I believed you to be, Dick, or you would know that ’tis not of any one present people are talking. You should have noticed that Miss Linley is absent, and that every one is saying that she is ashamed to face me. She has reason for it, Dick. Do you not allow that she treated me badly? Oh, you must allow so much; she treated me cruelly, for I give you my word, Dick, that I never offended her even by a look. I was not one of those presumptuous fools who made love to her. No word of love did I ever breathe in her hearing. Do you fancy that I am not speaking the truth, sir?”
“I do not doubt it, Nat—indeed I do not doubt it.”
“Give me your hand, Dick; you are my friend. That is why I am perfectly frank with you now, as I have always been. I was ever silent in her presence, and I believed that she respected my silence; she must have known that I was ready to lay my heart at her feet, I was so silent. Ah, she is afraid to face me. She stays away.”
“Nat, my friend, if you ask me for my opinion,” said Dick, “I will tell you without hesitation that if you saw there was great reason to maintain silence in the presence of Miss Linley, the attitude is even more becoming in her absence. Come, sir, be a man. Think that there’s as good fish in the sea as ever came out of it. Good heavens, man! am I doomed to listen to the plaint of every foolish swain who believes that he has been aggrieved by Miss Linley? I tell you plainly, Nat, you must find another confidant. What! Have you no self-respect? Do you think it is to your credit to go about, like a doctor at a funeral, advertising your own failures? Oh, I have no patience with fellows like you who have no backbone. And so good-evening to you, sir.”
He turned about, leaving the young man overwhelmed with amazement, for Dick had always shown himself to be most sympathetic—a man to encourage confidences.