“I needed no telling that what he wished so passionately to say a few days since he did not now desire. Nor need I tell my Kitty neither that this being so I flirted and laughed and jested with Colonel Mainwaring until my throat was sore and my lips like to crack from smiling. A hateful—a horrid day! It should have rained waterspouts and blown hurricanes to please my humour and instead the birds sang in a fair sunshine and the river smiled back at a sky as blue.
“Unfeeling capricious nature!
“So it ended. I could not complain of any luck of attention. Bas’s good breeding and gallantry will never fail him, but the soul of it was gone. ’Twas like the picture of a rose instead of the rose itself all dewy and perfumed. He was on his guard—I on mine.
“Kitty, do I love the man? For God’s sake resolve me, you who love your Sir Richard. At the very least he disturbs me greatly, affects my sleep, holds me in a horrid suspense. Do I love him?
“But my story is not yet ended.
“Today I went to the Duchess of Queensbury’s, meeting Bas at the doorstep. Conceive my astonishment when who should I find with her but Bolton (he’s always there however) Mr. Gay, and the fair stranger! God help us, Kitty, such was my astonishment that ’tis a marvel I didn’t swoon into the great sopha. ’Tis true that your namesake, the fair Kitty, is surely a little brainsick, so amazing are her whimsies, but this past all the mysteries of all the French romances. I took a sharp quick look at Bas under my hat and again saw the same smothered perturbation. Bolton stood grave and quiet by the mantelpiece and in his handsome face none can read but what he wishes. And Mr. Gay was the same busy-body as ever. So I took nothing by my inquisition.
“I tried the Kitty of Kittys then (but not so charming as my own Kitty) and asked an introduction. Her Grace rose, looking at least seven feet high and bundled the lady out of the room at the heels of Pompey and Mr. Gay. So I saw ’twas my room preferred to my company and, came off as handsomely as I could, and Bas stayed behind.
“Now, what should this mean? Sure the young person is a woman of condition, for we all know the Queensbury pride. I’m tost about and know not what to think. But this I can tell them one and all. I’ll be at the bottom of their secret before the week’s out. What! Three men and a woman know a secret and hope to keep me out! The Lord forbid. I must be in my dotage before such infamy befall me.
“—As for news, the play at Court is frightful high and I have just lost two hundred guineas at hazard. And at the same table the Princess Emily lost seven hundred—and Lord Godolphin thirty, so he got off the cheapest. The Princess’s spirits was beyond anything I ever saw. She laughed so as she sat in her chair as I thought she would burst her staylace. But for my part I think play a folly, and find no recreation in it. ’Tis the mode— That’s all there’s to say.
“The Prince of Wales and Miss Vane on horrid bad terms with Papa and Mamma. Such calling of names on both sides! But I won’t make this letter contraband with Court scandals.