"Madam, you have the strongest claim upon me. Fétis is an old servant—"
"He is an old servant. If I had known how old before I married him—"
"O, madam, he is not a septuagenarian; Fétis is my junior."
"He looks your lordship's senior; but it is not so much his age I object to. I would forgive him for being ninety if he were only indulgent and generous."
"Is he capable of meanness to so bewitching a wife?"
"Yes, sir, he is horribly stingy. At this hour I am being dunned to death by my next-door neighbour, to whom I owe a paltry fifteen guineas. She is Madame Furbelow, the Court milliner, a person of some ton, and she and I were dearest friends till this money trouble parted us—but 'tis shocking not to be able to pay one's debts of honour. Yet, to my certain knowledge, Fétis has lost hundreds in a single night to some of his fine gentlemen customers, who fool him by pretending to treat him as a friend. There was the wild Duke of Wharton, for instance, and his club of intriguers, the Schemers they called themselves, a committee of gallants, who used to hold their meetings at our house and plot mischief against poor innocent women—how to carry off silly heiresses and to conquer rich widows. His Grace had a bank at faro, and that foolish husband of mine was a frequent loser."
"He must have won sometimes, madam. He must have had his lucky nights, like the rest of us."
"Then he kept his good luck to himself, sir; I never heard of it. He said he ought to have the devil's luck in love since he was so cursedly unlucky at cards and dice. And then, though he has the effrontery to deny me a few guineas, I have heard him boast that he has claims upon you which you must always honour, that your purse was a golden stream which could never run dry."
"O, he has boasted, has he, the poor foolish fellow, boasted of his power over me?"
"Nay, sir, I did not presume to mention the word 'power.' He has bragged of his services to you—long and faithful services such as no other man in Europe would have rendered to a master. He has curious fits at times—but I did not come hither to betray his secrets, poor creature; I came in the hope that your lordship, who has been ever so bountiful to my husband, could perhaps grant some small pecuniary favour to a poor woman in distress—"