“It'sh about that East Indian thing,” and he lowered his voice as he concluded the sentence.
“I don't care a pin, Sir.”
The amiable Mr. Goldshed hesitated; Mr. Longcluse passed him as if he had been a post. He turned, however, and walked a few steps by Mr. Longcluse's side.
“And everything elshe is going sho vell; and it would look fishy, don't you think, to let thish thing go that way?”
“Let them go—and go you with them. I wish the earth would swallow you all—scrip, bonds, children, and beldames.” And if a stamp could have made the earth open at his bidding, it would have yawned wide enough at that instant. “If you follow me another step, by Heaven, I'll make it unpleasant to you.”
Mr. Longcluse looked so angry, that the Jew made him an unctuous bow, and remained fixed for a while to the earth, gazing after his patron with his hands in his pockets; and, with a gloomy countenance, he took forth a big cigar from his case, lighted a vesuvian, and began to smoke, still looking after Mr. Longcluse.
That gentleman sauntered on, striking his stick now and then to the ground, or waving it over the grass in as many odd flourishes as a magician in a pantomime traces with his wand.
If men are prone to teaze themselves with imaginations, they are equally disposed to comfort themselves with the same shadowy influences.
“I'm so nervous about this thing, and so anxious, that I exaggerate everything that seems to tell against me. How did I ever come to love her so? And yet, would I kill that love if I could? Should I not kill myself first? I'll go and see Miss Maubray—I may hear something from her. Lady May was embarrassed: what then? Were I a simple observer of such a scene in the case of another, I should say there was nothing in it more than this—that she had quite forgotten all about her promise. She never mentioned my name, and when the moment came, and I had come to ask for an account, she did not know what to say. It was well done, to see old Mrs. Tansey as I did. Lady May is so good-natured, and would feel her little neglect so much, and she will be sure to make it up. Fifty things may have prevented her. Yes, I'll go and hear what Miss Maubray has to say, and I'll lunch with Lady May to-morrow. I suspect that her visit to-day was to Mortlake.”
With these reflections, Mr. Longcluse's pace became brisker, and his countenance brightened.