Then once more was Eugene at Mary's side, congratulating himself that the separation from one another—which the stupidity of the servants, out of practice in anything like civilized entertainments had occasioned them was over.
"Is not that flattering, considering who was his partner in this isolation, as he calls it?" replied Mrs. de Burgh. "Stupidity, not at all! poor old Richard wished to do us honour, and he thought he could not do so to greater perfection than by putting us into the largest, coldest room, and at the longest table. Besides it could not have been better arranged, for other reasons. How well you got on with Uncle Trevor, Mary; we see that he is quiet charmed with you already."
"I fear I have had little time or opportunity as yet to win or merit any such unqualified approbation," Mary replied, "though I may hope, that in time,"—looking at Eugene with a smile.
"Oh, I assure you," interposed Mrs. de Burgh, laughing, "that you did a great deal in that short time. First of all you fully proved to my uncle that your appetite was of no formidable dimensions, (I know he holds mine of old in horror) not greatly above that of a sparrow. Then you only took a thimble full of wine; and he obtained full assurance that you had not been in London for ages—had no great longing to go there at all—had been accustomed, and indeed did, prefer the country; and therefore he need have no fear—when the truth is broken to him—of Eugene's being dragged off by you to London every season, his money squandered, as he fancies my husband's is (I wish, indeed, it was so squandered) upon hotel-bills and opera boxes! Oh, you did it capitally, Mary! did she not Eugene?"
"Olivia is too bad, is she not?" was Eugene's reply, having—during Mrs. de Burgh's speech—been gazing with a fond smile into the expressive countenance of his betrothed, as she listened, half amused—half surprised and shocked, to her cousin's unceremonious ridicule of her uncle's peculiarities before his son.
"She is too bad," he continued, "and will give you but a poor idea of what you may expect in this house; when, of course, everything would be set on a very different train on your becoming its inmate."
And Eugene took the hand of his betrothed within his own with such tender affection, that Mrs. de Burgh began to experience something of the uncomfortable sensation of feeling herself de trop, to which chaperones, or any third person, under similar circumstances, are apt to be exposed. So she proposed an immediate adjournment, deeming this the best measure to be adopted for promoting a more comfortable position of affairs.
They accordingly proceeded through some of the large apartments, handsome rooms, for the most part, though covered and shut up, and as Mr. Trevor had reported, "cold, very cold." Mrs. de Burgh at least found them so, and Trevor having proposed to show Mary a more pleasant and habitable room, which he thought she would prefer, Mrs. de Burgh applauded the plan, and accompanied them up the staircase, but in the gallery suddenly remembered that she had something particular to say to Marryott, and adding that she would go and look for her, and return to them in the boudoir, when they might go out to walk, she left the lovers alone together. Trevor accordingly proceeded to lead Mary in the direction of the room thus specified.
There were pictures on the walls of the corridor through which they passed, and one of these Mary would fain have waited more particularly to survey.