“The continuance of my own favour,” he was going to say, but it was painful to him to utter the words, and he had a superstitious dread, common to courtiers, of speaking of their decline of favour, Besides, he knew that reproaches for want of address in managing Lord Oldborough’s humour would immediately follow from Mrs. Falconer, if he gave any hint of this kind; and on his address the commissioner piqued himself, not without reason. Abruptly changing his tone, and taking that air of authority which every now and then he thought fit to assume, he said, “Mrs. Falconer, there’s one thing I won’t allow—I won’t allow Georgiana and you to make a fool of young Petcalf.”
“By no means, my love; but if he makes a fool of himself, you know?”
“Mrs. Falconer, you recollect the transaction about the draught.”
“For Zara’s dress?”
“Yes, ma’am. The condition you made then in my name with Georgiana I hold her to, and I expect that she be prepared to be Mrs. Petcalf within the year.”
“I told her so, my dear, and she acquiesces—she submits—she is ready to obey—if nothing better offers.”
“If—Ay, there it is!—All the time I know you are looking to the Clays; and if they fail, somebody else will start up, whom you will think a better match than Petcalf, and all these people are to be fêted, and so you will go on, wasting my money and your own time. Petcalf will run restive at last, you will lose him, and I shall have Georgiana left upon my hands after all.”
“No danger, my dear. My principle is the most satisfactory and secure imaginable. To have a number of tickets in the wheel—then, if one comes up a blank, still you have a chance of a prize in the next. Only have patience, Mr. Falconer.”
“Patience! my dear: how can a man have patience, when he has seen the same thing going on for years? And I have said the same thing to you over and over a hundred times, Mrs. Falconer.”
“A hundred times at least, I grant, and that, perhaps, is enough to try my patience you’ll allow, and yet, you see how reasonable I am. I have only to repeat what is incontrovertible, that when a girl has been brought up, and has lived in a certain line, you must push her in that line, for she will not do in any other. You must be sensible that no mere country gentleman would ever think of Georgiana—we must push her in the line for which she is fit—the fashionable line.”