‘If he takes my advice he won’t touch the play,’ said Mrs. Jordan, fairly trembling with rage.
‘There you see the Country Girl,’ said Mrs. Powell, pointing to her friend with a little hand that trembled too. ‘Her temper is only so long’ (she indicated the twentieth part of an inch). ‘Nobody can say that she has not a natural manner, or does not know how to blush.’
‘Nobody can say of Mrs. Powell,’ retorted the other, ‘when she tries to blush, that her beauty is only skin deep.’
It was certainly a most terrible scene, and most heartily did William Henry wish himself back in Norfolk Street. At that very moment, however, when he expected to see them dig their nails into one another, both ladies burst out laughing. He began to think that either their rage or their laughter must needs be artificial, whereas, in fact, while they lasted they were both real enough. Mirth with them was the natural safety valve of all their passions, and a very excellent mechanical contrivance too.
‘But won’t you just lighten my Edmunda a little, Mr. Erin,’ persisted Mrs. Powell; ‘a touch here and a touch there?’
‘My dear madam, supposing even I were capable of doing such a thing (which I am not), just consider what people would say if I touched the play. Even now our enemies attack its authenticity, and what a handle must such a proceeding needs afford them.’
‘That is surely reasonable,’ observed Mrs. Jordan for the second time.
‘I don’t know about reasonable,’ returned Mrs. Powell with a most bewitching pout; ‘but I know if you were not here I could persuade him.’
‘Shall I leave you?’ said Mrs. Jordan, making a feint of retiring from the room.
‘Oh no,’ pleaded William Henry involuntarily.