“Yes, exactly,” said he, smiling: “thank you for the apt allusion.”
“Very apt, indeed,” said she; and a thick gloom overspread her countenance. She persisted in taking his assent in sober earnest. “Yes,” said she, “I find you think all my kindness is treacherous. I will show you no more, and then you cannot accuse me of treachery.”
It was in vain that he protested he had been only in jest; she was convinced that he was in earnest; she was suddenly afflicted with an absolute incapacity of distinguishing jest from earnest. She recurred to the idea of the vampire-bat, whenever it was convenient to her to suppose that her husband thought strange things of her, which never entered his brain. This bat proved to him a bird of ill omen, which preceded a train of misfortunes, that no mortal foresight could reach, and no human prudence avert. His goddess was not to be appeased by any propitiatory or expiatory sacrifice.
CHAPTER XI.
“Short is the period of insulting power,
Offended Cupid finds his vengeful hour.”
Finding it impossible to regain his fair one’s favour, Mr. Bolingbroke absented himself from her presence. He amused himself for some days with his friend Mr. Granby, in attending to a plantation which he was laying out in his grounds. Griselda was vexed to perceive that her husband could find any amusement independent of her; and she never failed, upon his return, to mark her displeasure.
One morning the gentlemen had been so much occupied with their plantation, that they did not attend the breakfast-table precisely in due time: the contrast in the looks of the two ladies when their husbands entered the room was striking. Griselda was provoked with Mrs. Granby for being so good-humoured.
“Lord bless me! Mrs. Granby, how you spoil these men,” cried she.