“Is her virtue so very impregnable?” said he, with a sneer.
“Her virtue,” answered Mrs. James, “hath the best guard in the world, which is a most violent love for her husband.”
“All pretence and affectation,” cries the colonel. “It is impossible she should have so little taste, or indeed so little delicacy, as to like such a fellow.”
“Nay, I do not much like him myself,” said she. “He is not indeed at all such a sort of man as I should like; but I thought he had been generally allowed to be handsome.”
“He handsome!” cries James. “What, with a nose like the proboscis of an elephant, with the shoulders of a porter, and the legs of a chairman? The fellow hath not in the least the look of a gentleman, and one would rather think he had followed the plough than the camp all his life.”
“Nay, now I protest,” said she, “I think you do him injustice. He is genteel enough in my opinion. It is true, indeed, he is not quite of the most delicate make; but, whatever he is, I am convinced she thinks him the finest man in the world.”
“I cannot believe it,” answered he peevishly; “but will you invite her to dinner here to-morrow?”
“With all my heart, and as often as you please,” answered she. “But I have some favours to ask of you. First, I must hear no more of going out of town till I please.”
“Very well,” cries he.
“In the next place,” said she, “I must have two hundred guineas within these two or three days.”