"Oh! there can be no harm since we are two," said Julia.
And, in spite of all I could say or do to prevent her, she pulled the check string, and Meyler seated himself by my side, declaring he was willing to prove at the very next Opera, how desirous and how proud he should feel to acknowledge and protect me there or anywhere else.
I told him I had merely spoken in haste, as the thing struck me at the moment; that it was forgotten the next, and, if I had been rude, I was ready to apologise rather than be teased any longer on a subject which must be so uninteresting to all parties. Situated as I was with his friend Lord Worcester, and being about to retire into Devonshire till his lordship's return, what was the use of making acquaintances?
"Oh dear," said Julia, "what shall I do?"
"What has happened to you pray?" I inquired.
"Oh, I am ruined—I shall be ruined! The man will arrest me for his bill. I had all the trouble in the world to get two twenty pound notes out of Napier at the Opera to-night, for the purpose of settling his bill with them early in the morning, and they are gone!"
Poor Julia, as she turned over her reticule for the last time, appeared the image of despair. We had only just entered Pall Mall. Meyler, glad to be employed rather than be turned out altogether, entreated us to wait in the coach, while he ran back to search my box for Julia's bank-notes.
Julia, being more in debt than she dared to acquaint her stingy lover Napier with, and really dreading the bailiffs every hour of her life, was miserably agitated at this accident; and, being pregnant as usual, she was seized with violent sickness just as Meyler had left us.
"What will become of me?" said she. "I must drive off directly. I would rather go to prison than disgust that charming young man with my sickness."
I thought it cruel to keep her waiting since she was so very ill, and therefore, seeing the watchman standing in his box, I offered to let her set me down and drive off without me.