“I am convinced of it,” said Miss Broadhurst; “and that is what makes me tolerably happy, though I have the misfortune to be an heiress.”
“That is the oddest speech,” said Lady Anne. “Now I should so like to be a great heiress, and to have, like you, such thousands and thousands at command.”
“And what can the thousands upon thousands do for me? Hearts, you know, Lady Anne, are to be won only by radiant eyes. Bought hearts your ladyship certainly would not recommend. They’re such poor things—no wear at all. Turn them which way you will, you can make nothing of them.”
“You’ve tried, then, have you?” said Lady Catherine.
“To my cost.—Very nearly taken in by them half a dozen times; for they are brought to me by dozens; and they are so made up for sale, and the people do so swear to you that it’s real, real love, and it looks so like it: and, if you stoop to examine it, you hear it pressed upon you by such elegant oaths.—By all that’s lovely!—By all my hopes of happiness!—By your own charming self! Why, what can one do but look like a fool, and believe? for these men, at the time, all look so like gentlemen, that one cannot bring oneself flatly to tell them that they are cheats and swindlers, that they are perjuring their precious souls. Besides, to call a lover a perjured creature is to encourage him. He would have a right to complain if you went back after that.”
“O dear! what a move was there!” cried Lady Catherine. “Miss Broadhurst is so entertaining to-night, notwithstanding her sore throat, that one can positively attend to nothing else. And she talks of love and lovers too with such connoissance de fait—counts her lovers by dozens, tied up in true lovers’ knots!”
“Lovers!—no, no! Did I say lovers?—suitors I should have said. There’s nothing less like a lover, a true lover, than a suitor, as all the world knows, ever since the days of Penelope. Dozens!—never had a lover in my life!—And fear, with much reason, I never shall have one to my mind.”
“My lord, you’ve given up the game,” cried Lady Catherine; “but you make no battle.”
“It would be so vain to combat against your ladyship,” said Lord Colambre, rising, and bowing politely to Lady Catherine, but turning the next instant to converse with Miss Broadhurst.
“But when I talked of liking to be an heiress,” said Lady Anne, “I was not thinking of lovers.”