"You don't know women, Tom."
"Well, let us grant for a moment that you have made an impression; don't you see the imprudence of having an intrigue so near your home, in a little place where every action is noticed and discussed?"
"I don't care a fig what they discuss. That's the giarl's look out, not mine, damme! If neither she nor her father object to my visits, why should I be squeamish?"
"Why? Because you will be the laughter of the county."
"Thank ye, Tom."
"I'm serious, Chet. Your age is tolerably well known there, and you may imagine the gossip and the ridicule which will attach to any affair of yours with a young girl. It will be the talk of the whole county."
Sir Chetsom knew that quite as well as his knowing brother; but what his brother did not know, was that the great attraction in this intrigue consisted in the very fact so distinctly enunciated: "It will be the talk of the whole county!" He wished it to be so. He anticipated the scandal, and rejoiced thereat. He heard the chorus of virtuous matrons declaiming against his "wickedness," and the sound was exquisitely flattering. He shook his head with an air of knowing satisfaction as he read (in his mind's eye) the paragraphs in the local papers upbraiding him for his villainy. The phrase "The wretch! at his age to be seducing women!" flattered his anticipative ear more sweetly than any strain from Beethoven or Mozart could lull the spirit of a musician.
Tom Chetsom, frank old fellow, never once attempting to conceal a wrinkle, or to disguise a bald patch, could not comprehend his brother's secret pride in being made a butt. He understood the vanity of his brother's dandyism and juvenility: he saw specimens enough of that at his club. But knowing how all men, and above all men Sir Chetsom, shrunk from ridicule, it was a puzzle to him that the inevitable ridicule of his intrigue with Hester should not be a bugbear to frighten him away. He forgot that amidst all the ridicule and reprobation, there would be a tacit acknowledgment of Sir Chetsom's lady-killing powers; and for that acknowledgment he could scarcely pay too dearly.
As a mere safeguard for his vanity, and not out of any illiberality, he had from the first determined upon making no settlement on Hester, in case she should consent to live with him. If his intrigue cost him anything, the laugh would justly be turned against him as a dupe. If it cost him nothing, the world would storm at his meanness, but they would believe in his power.