“He has no society, then?” asked Sir Thomas.
“Oh, society! it is like the poem,” said the young man, with a sigh. “I should think it would be so everywhere. ‘Ye common people of the sky, what are ye when your queen is nigh?’”
Sir Thomas had been much puzzled by the application to Waring, as he supposed, of the phrase, “such a creature as that;” but now he perceived, with a compassionate shake of his head, what the poor young fellow meant. Con had been at her tricks again! He said, with the pitying look which such a question warranted, “I suppose you are very fond of poetry?”
“No,” said the young soldier, astonished, looking at him suddenly. “Oh no. I am afraid I am very ignorant; but sometimes it expresses what nothing else can express. Don’t you think so?”
“I think perhaps it is time to join the ladies,” Sir Thomas said. He was sorry for the boy, though a little contemptuous too; but then he himself had known Con and her tricks from her cradle, and those of many another, and he was hardened. He thought their mothers had been far more attractive women.
Was it the same art which made Frances look up with that bright look of welcome, and almost affectionate interest, when they returned to the drawing-room? Sir Thomas liked her so much, that he hoped it was not merely one of their tricks; then paused, and said to himself that it would be better if it were so, and not that the girl had really taken a fancy to this young fellow, whose heart and head were both full of another, and who, even without that, would evidently be a very poor thing for Lady Markham’s daughter. Sir Thomas was so far unjust to Frances, that he concluded it must be one of her tricks, when he recollected how complacent she had been to Claude Ramsay, finding places for him where he could sit out of the draught. They were all like that, he said to himself; but concluded that, as one nail drives out another, a second “affair,” if he could be drawn into it, might cure the victim. This rapid résumé of all the circumstances, present and future, is a thing which may well take place in an experienced mind in the moment of entering a room in which there are materials for the development of a new chapter in the social drama. The conclusion he came to led him to the side of Lady Markham, who was writing the address upon one of her many notes. “It is to Nelly Winterbourn,” she explained, “to inquire—— You know they have dragged that poor sufferer up to town, to be near the best advice; and he is lying more dead than alive.”
“Perhaps it is not very benevolent, so far as he is concerned; but I hope he’ll linger a long time,” said Sir Thomas.
“Oh, so do I! These imbroglios may go on for a long time and do nobody any harm. But when a horrible crisis comes, and one feels that they must be cleared up!” It was evident that in this Lady Markham was not specially considering the sufferings of poor Mr Winterbourn.
“What does Markham say?” Sir Thomas asked.
“Say! He does not say anything. He shuffles—you know the way he has. He never could stand still upon both of his feet.”