Amy, if I recollect right, came to Paris with Nugent and Luttrell: at all events if she was not actually the companion of those famous inseparables, she must have followed them immediately. I remember all three paying me a visit together, and inviting me to visit them in the Rue Mont Blanc.
"What then, do you all live together?" I inquired.
"We have each separate apartments, in the same hotel," they replied, and I agreed to call on them.
As for Meyler, he continued to be all a woman could possibly wish him, as long as there was rivalry with Lord Ebrington; but, as soon as ever his lordship had, or seemed to have, relinquished the pursuit, Meyler left off being amiable by slow degrees, till he became just what he had been before Ebrington had made an infraction in the complete harmony of our ménage. At that time Lord Hertford's remark occurred to me: "Better live on a bone, than with a man of uneven or bad temper."
In one of Meyler's fits of dogged humour, he asked me if I imagined he was vain enough or dupe enough to believe that I had given up such a man as Lord Ebrington for him? "You know, as well as I do," continued Meyler, "that you are only making a merit of necessity. Ebrington got tired of you!"
I bit my lips with indignation, as ladies are wont to do on these occasions; but I remained silent, considering that most dignified. At last I subdued my anger, and held out my hand to him, saying, "Come, soyons amis. It is a great misfortune to yourself that your temper is so unhappy; and therefore I will try and forgive the torment it sometimes occasions me. In regard to what you say of my making a pis-aller of you, it might perhaps not be very difficult to convince you of the contrary; however of this I do not profess to be certain. At a word then, shall I try the experiment?"
"You know I shall not consent or you would not ask me," answered Meyler.
"Be it so then," retorted I; "be it as you will, only pray, pray, a little peace if you please, and a little respite from these eternal quarrels, or part we must and part we will!"
Again we were friends, pour le moment, and again and again we quarrelled. Meyler had his fits of good and bad humour alternately. One hour this peevish, spoiled, provoking little creature would declare that we would never part, and that he had determined never to marry for my sake; and the next, he would say that it was not in his nature to be constant. Sometimes, he would profess to feel respect and friendship alone for me; but as to passion, or anything like love, that naturally had gone by long ago: and then he would make strong love to Rosabella.
I cannot help giving myself some little credit for the patience and command of temper with which I endured all these taunts. On another occasion he assured me, in direct contradiction to all this, that I was so profligate that he could not like or respect me; nay more, it was out of his power to respect any woman on earth, who had shared her favours with more than one man, and that the very strong passion I had inspired him with was his only reason for staying with me.