CHAPTER XXXII.
MEANWHILE the inscrutable Providence, whose apparent neglect of the affairs of men is only less remarkable than its seeming interference with them, had decreed that these affairs with which we are at present occupied should be dignified by the participation in them of Lady Flanders. For, at about the hour when Philip and Perdita were driving in the Park, and discussing the former’s domestic situation, Mr. Thomas Moore was calling upon the elderly aristocrat, and the conversation between them was taking a similar direction.
Precisely what passed on this occasion, it is unnecessary at this moment to inquire; but the reader may be reminded that Mr. Moore was a gentleman, and incapable of wantonly betraying any lady’s confidence; and he may further be informed that the genial poet’s acquaintance with Lady Flanders was intimate and of old standing. Her attitude toward him was, indeed, of a quasi-maternal character: and in the present instance his communications, whatever they were, were prompted in great measure by his recognition of her great social influence, and by the fact that her declared opinion, favorable or unfavorable, of any person, was apt to go a long way toward making or marring that person’s social reputation. When Mr. Moore left her ladyship’s presence, she patted him on the shoulder and called him a good boy; and he issued from her door with the light of conscious virtue glistening on his ingenuous forehead.
Next morning Lady Flanders arose early, and in the course of her toilet preparations she fell into chat, as her custom was, with her maid Christine, an attractive young person of German extraction, deft of hand and soothing of voice, who could design and elevate a headdress in a manner to please the most exacting elderly aristocrat imaginable. Christine was a great favorite with her mistress, and was the only human being of either sex to whom that lady was uniformly indulgent and good-humored. Christine, for her part, was much attached to Lady Flanders; but, with the perversity and short-sightedness of persons in her enviable condition of life, she had lately taken it into her head to lose her heart; and the individual who had won it was a Mr. Catnip, whose name has been once or twice mentioned in this history, as a servant of Sir Francis Bendibow. It would appear that Christine and her cavalier had met to enjoy each other’s society the evening previous; and Mr. Catnip had at that time confided to Christine a curious circumstance which had happened to come under his observation the day before at Vauxhall. After Christine had repeated to her mistress the main points of Mr. Catnip’s story, her ladyship interrupted her.
“Of course you understand, Christine,” she said, “that I am convinced to begin with that your Catnip has been telling you a pack of lies, and that there’s not a word of truth in the tale from beginning to end. ’Tis very foolish of you to have anything at all to say to such a fellow, and my advice to you is to drop him at once. Is he willing to make affidavit that ’twas really the Marquise Desmoines he saw there?”
“Oh, yiss, madame! He stand close by de box on which Madame la Marquise sit, and he recognize de ring on her finger, and her tone as she speak with her companion. They sit on de box next to Madame Lancaster.”
“Could she and Mrs. Lancaster see each other?”
“Not whiles dey sit so; but soon Madame Lancaster get up and go out in front, and den Madame la Marquise....”
“Aye, aye: a mighty pretty story! And so then Sir Francis fainted away, did he, and Mrs. Lancaster got a carriage, and Catnip followed it?... Upon my word, Christine, you ought to be ashamed of yourself to listen to such trash: much more to repeat it to me. Take care you never open your mouth about it to any one else, that’s all.”
“Oh, not in de least, madame.”