“My dear Wingfield, you may be sure that I would not have thrust myself upon you at this—this—this interesting time if I could have avoided it,” cried the visitor. “At the same time, I must honestly confess that I’m rather glad to find you so circumstanced——”
“Gloriana! What a word—‘circumstanced’!” murmured Jack.
“Well, I mean that I’m pleased to be able to make an appeal to you in the presence of some one who will, I am sure, advise you to listen to me, and not condemn me without thinking the whole matter over.”
“Isn’t he artful?” said Jack. “He has just killed a political opponent and he is about to appeal to my better nature not to give him away. He knows that women are invariably on the side of the criminal. Go on, F. F.”
“Mrs. Wingfield, I ask you if this isn’t ungenerous on the part of your husband. Here I have come down from the intoxicating pleasure of the London season solely to ask this man to become a member of Parliament, and this is how he receives my proposition.”
Mr. Franklin Forrester had very rarely to be so straightforward as he was in this speech. As a matter of fact, his resources in this particular direction were so limited that he found it absolutely necessary to economise them; and the general opinion that prevailed among his political opponents was that he was very successful in his exercise of this form of thrift. But his excuse to himself for having resorted to an unaccustomed figure of speech was that this was an exceptional case that demanded exceptional treatment.
He had been straightforward almost to a point of abruptness, and he perceived that the end had justified the means: Jack Wingfield was voiceless and gasping, and Mrs. Wingfield was silent and flushing.
He saw what manner of woman she was—yes, up to a certain point. He saw that she was far more appreciative of a compliment paid to her husband than her husband was; and he also saw that she was more anxious for her husband’s advancement than her husband was.
He had rendered them speechless; and he knew that that was the prehistoric method of woman-capture; and that up to the present a more effective method has not been devised by the wit of man. Stun them, and there you are.
He felt that he had captured Mrs. Wingfield. She had flushed with surprise and delight. He had heard all about her from his useful friend, Compton Elliot, of Framsby. She was a farmer’s daughter, and having played her cards well, she had married a man with a fine property and not too rigid a backbone. She was sure to be ambitious to achieve a further step—one that should carry her away from the associations of the farm into the centre of London society—for the greater part of the year.