He purchased his pardon, however, and by a speech so adroit that in Walton it must have appeared worthy at least of a Lauzun—had Lauzun's name ever been heard there.
"If I do not yield this trifle to public opinion they will force me to quit this place, and to quit the place would be quitting you."—She forgave him.
But her pardon availed him little. Invited by Mrs. St. John to the Grange, patronized by the "great people" round Walton, her volume on the eve of being launched into the wide sea of literature, she felt all her old ambition revive within her, and scarcely forgave herself for having idled away an hour with such a youth as Stone—too poor for a husband, too insignificant for a lover.
The patronage of Sir Chetsom Chetsom completed her intoxication. That graceless old Lovelace, struck with the beauty of his protégé, saw at once the facilities afforded him for an intrigue. He was constantly at her father's. Her poems made the pretext of his visits. Her charms formed the staple of his conversation; varied by accounts of London society, and visions of the brilliant career which awaited her if she only determined boldly to enter it.
A sorry figure, truly, was the wigged and whiskered baronet for a girl with "bright imaginings," and at five and twenty, to choose as her lover; and yet, if I have contrived to indicate her character properly, the reader will not be surprised at her lending a willing ear to the old boy's artful flatteries.
He was not young, but he was rich. He had no "imaginings," but he could tell of the splendours of the capital. He had no "mission," but he wore bottes vernies. He was without "earnestness," but he talked fluently of all the new works, and had met most of the literary lions in society.
More than all, he was Sir Chetsom Chetsom, and she was Hester Mason the linen-draper's daughter. Rank gives a lustre which dazzles even virtue; and Hester had very few scruples of virtue to struggle against; so that ambition found her an easy victim. She coquetted—she was "cruel" to her adorer; not because she was afraid to yield, but because she wished to sell her honour dearly.
CHAPTER III.
WHAT WAS SAID OF THE WALTON SAPPHO.
"Is it not shocking?" said Mrs. Ruddles, the curate's wife, to Mrs. Spedley, the surgeon's better half, as she sipped the smoking bohea, and commented on the ongoings of Walton, and its "muse" in particular,—"Is it not shocking to witness such depravity? To think of his taking up with such trumpery as Hester Mason!"