“He may have won the favor of the bong-tong,” replied Sir Thomas, impudently mimicking Lady Hawkshaw’s French, “but he has not yet succeeded in winning my favor.”
“That’s a pity,” said Lady Hawkshaw; “but it doesn’t signify, I dare say. It will not keep you alive a day longer. And there is your other cousin—Captain Overton of the Guards. He is what so few of our young men are, pious and God-fearing.”
“And a sniveling, John Wesley Methodist besides,” snarled Sir Thomas, much exasperated.
“Bless me, Sir Thomas,” cried Lady Hawkshaw, “don’t be so hard on those worthy people, the Methodists.”
I own this surprised me, for if there was anything on earth upon which Lady Hawkshaw was uncompromising, it was Church and State; and, excellent woman though she was, I believe she would have been rather glad to make one big bonfire of all the dissenters in England.
Sir Thomas was far from insensible to Lady Arabella’s charms, and, after a further exchange of hostilities with Lady Hawkshaw, turned to Arabella. She smiled upon him, and seemed anxious to conciliate him; and in a little while I caught enough of their conversation to know that she was telling him of the meeting between Giles and Overton, and representing that it had been forced upon Overton by the insults of Giles Vernon. Sir Thomas’ response to her tale was that he did not give a damn for either of them, and if both had bit the dust he should not have been sorry.
When Sir Thomas left, Lady Hawkshaw called the tall footman.
“Jeames,” she said, “when that—person calls again, the ladies are not at home. Do you understand?”
Jeames understood perfectly, in spite of Lady Arabella’s scowls.
It is not to be supposed that a young man of Giles Vernon’s spirit had not been able to go through with his prize-money and run pretty considerably in debt in five or six weeks in London, and one morning, some days after this, when I went to see Giles at his lodgings, I found the bailiffs in possession. Giles, however, was as merry as a grig, because that very morning he had got an appointment to the Belvidera frigate.