No opportunity therefore was lost, no pains omitted to arrive at this desirable end, and to improve the recognition with which Sir William found himself at times honoured, into what should at least appear a footing of intimacy. An opera box was an outwork more easy to be taken by a coup de main, than a lodgment effected in the citadel itself; and while unregistered on the favoured list of the entré at Lady Tilney's mansion, the access to her circle in the public theatre, which was not denied him, appeared a license of the utmost importance, and one which he was the last man to let grow obsolete by neglect of usage, or forget to turn to profit.
"Has not the Sontag outdone herself to-night, Lady Tilney?" asked Sir William as he entered the box.
"Yes, never was there such a singer—I have been listening till my very ears ache with intense attention."
"I am so glad, Lady Tilney, to hear you say so, for I have been disputing the point with Lord Albert D'Esterre, who maintains that the Sontag's singing is not in the first style, and a great deal more of the same sort; but he might as well endeavour to persuade me that Ude is inferior to Doveton's present man Mariné. I think Lord Albert D'Esterre wishes to be thought an oracle, and the superior judge of all judges, and that without his decree there can be no perfection."
"Vraiment," said the Comtesse with a shrug of her shoulders, "I think Milor might suspend his judgments till he heard if people cared for dem."
"Ah, how delighted I am Comtesse to hear you say so," cried Sir William, repeating the words he had first addressed to Lady Tilney, and which indeed he addressed to every one of ton, let what might be the subject, or the sense that fell from them.
"Vraiment!" again came drily from the lips of Comtesse Leinsengen, accompanied with a look at the speaker, which told him that the contempt conveyed in that expression, when speaking of Lord Albert, attached equally to himself. Fully understanding the intended meaning, and conscious that with the Comtesse Leinsengen he had made much less way than with Lady Tilney, he turned once more to the latter, and addressed her on a subject by which he knew well he should pay his court successfully.
"You were not at Lady Borrowdale's the other night. You never saw such a set as were assembled there; positively there was no stirring without coming in contact with people whom one had never seen before—and then it is such bad taste to collect such a crowd—for my part, I got away after the first glance at the affair." Lady Tilney smiled, and Sir William, encouraged, continued, "Do you dine at Doveton's?"
"I believe so."
"I am delighted to hear you say so. Lord Osbalston asked me for the same day—but Mariné, you know, lives with Doveton now, and he could always turn the scale with me" (laughing affectedly); "Apropos, might I venture to ask the honour of your partaking of my rustic fare? I am living, you know, quite en garçon; but it would be a variety, so different from all you meet elsewhere; so very plain, and so very humble; and you would of course do me the honour to name your own party. Might I hope that you too, Comtesse, would condescend so far?"