“Must George be vulgar?” asked Lady Wyndham tragically.
“Be quiet, George! And as for you, Richard, I consider it in the highest degree nonsensical for you to take up that attitude. There is no denying that you’re the biggest catch on the Marriage Mart—Yes, Mama, that is vulgar too, and I beg your pardon—but you have a lower opinion of yourself than I credit you with if you can suppose that your fortune is the only thing about you which makes you a desirable parti. You are generally accounted handsome—indeed, no one, I believe, could deny that your person is such as must please; and when you will take the trouble to be conciliating there is nothing in your manners to disgust the nicest taste.”
“This encomium, Louisa, almost unmans me,” said Sir Richard, much moved.
“I am perfectly serious. I was about to add that you often spoil everything by your odd humours. I do not know how you should expect to engage a female’s affection when you never bestow the least distinguishing notice upon any woman! I do not say that you are uncivil, but there is a languor, a reserve in your manner, which must repel a woman of sensibility.”
“I am a hopeless case indeed,” said Sir Richard.
“If you want to know what I think, which I do not suppose you do, so you need not tell me so, it is that you are spoilt, Richard. You have too much money, you have done everything you wished to do before you are out of your twenties; you have been courted by match-making Mamas, fawned on by toadies, and indulged by all the world. The end of it is that you are bored to death. There! I have said it, and though you may not thank me for it, you will admit that I am right.”
“Quite right,” agreed Sir Richard. “Hideously right, Louisa!”
She got up. “Well, I advise you to get married and settle down. Come, Mama! We have said all we meant to say, and you know we are to call in Brook Street on our way home. George, do you mean to come with, us?”
“No,” said George. “Not to call in Brook Street, I daresay I shall stroll up to White’s presently.”
“Just as you please, my love,” said Louisa, drawing on her gloves again.