"Mais, ne sais-tu pas que je l'ai perdu?" I inquired.
"N'importe. Si je place ma confiance, mon ange! c'est en toi," said Worcester.
All this joking on serious and affecting matters is really in monstrously bad taste! I cannot conceive how I can be guilty of such heartless unfeeling behaviour! I, who condoled so pathetically both in the crim. con. cases of Lord Boringdon, whom Ponsonby used to call the Boring Don, and Sir William Abdy, when those excellent and abused husbands took their tea with me expressly, as they both declared, because I was a woman of such acute feelings; but, after all, being now in the daily habit of meeting this profligate Marquis of Worcester about Paris, with the sister of his late wife, and seeing him look as if he did not even know me by sight, while I often forget, until he has passed, where or when I have seen that man before, the face being familiar, and, perhaps, the name even forgotten—"Oh, by-the-bye!" I say to myself, if I meet him a second time in the same morning, "now I think of it, that long-nosed tall man is Worcester." And just in this way does his own treacherous memory no doubt treat his own "dearest dear; own beloved! ever adored, and ever to be adored! delicious! sweet! darling! wife! Harriette."
Tant ces choses la fâchent, quand on y pense! mais, ainsi va le monde! C'est dommage! Quoi faire? and how can one write pathetically on such trifling subjects? But, nevertheless, I beg my readers to understand, and believe that, though I was never in love with Worcester in my whole life, yet I was at one time much too grateful, and too much attached to him, ever to feel the slightest wish to be unfaithful even in thought, and, with his ardour on one side, and my friendly civility on the other, we certainly jogged on very well together; for I am, as I believe all my friends will admit, so warm-hearted naturally that my mere friendship is quite a match for many women's love. I am sure I always folded Worcester's neck handkerchiefs for him with my own hands, because he declared nobody else understood them: and besides this, I, every Monday morning of my life, read the housemaid a lecture about keeping his dressing-room free from dust! Qu'est ce qu'il voulait donc?
Worcester declared that he would not leave me, until his father would make me an allowance, at least during his absence from England. For this purpose, about three days previous to his departure, he brought Mr. Robinson, as he said, from the Duke of Beaufort.
Robinson declared that anything Worcester could sign, by way of annuity or allowance, would be good for nothing; "but," he continued, "I am come to pass my word, in the Duke's name, that the allowance Worcester requires for you shall be paid to you, in regular quarterly payments, after all your house debts, &c., have been discharged."
"Of course, Worcester, I may trust to this assurance made in your presence?" I inquired.
Worcester was sure his father would act up to his engagements, and I, being in grief, and naturally careless in money-matters, believing, too, that I was in the power of gentlemen, and gentlemen of strict honour, assured them I was under no alarm, and never expected to be left to starve, while I endeavoured to do my duty, and then the subject dropped.