Who made all the envious dandies despair
By the cut of his cuffs and the curl of his hair.”
She had spoken this doggerel with elaborate gestures toward the absurd manikin, her eyes gleaming at the applause that greeted each stanza. Unsheathing the dagger at her girdle, she waved it with a look of languishing that made new laughter.
“Who, ’tis said, when a fair Maid-of-Athens he pressed,
Swore his love on a dagger-scratch made on his breast!
And when they’d have drowned the poor creature, alack,
Brought gain to his glory by slitting the sack!”
John Hobhouse was staring indignantly, unable to control his anger. A note of triumph, more trenchant and remorseless than her raillery, grew into Lady Caroline’s tone:
“His deportment, so evilly mal-à-propos,
At last sunk him far every circle below,