“I think a deal of these ladies,” he said, in his mumbling voice. “It’s a great joke—a great joke. I should like to see old Gregson’s face when he hears of it. By Jove! and the old plotter you are, my lady, to make it all up. But it can’t be; it can’t be.”
“Why can’t it be?” cried Lady Piercey sharply, and much provoked.
“Because it wouldn’t be fair, neither to the one of them nor to the other. Not fair at all, by George. Fair play’s a jewel. What are you after, Dunning? Let my legs alone. There’s nothing the matter with my legs. And you can go and be dashed to you. Can’t I talk to my lady without you here?”
“Don’t send him away,” cried Lady Piercey hurriedly. “I can’t have you get ill, and perhaps do yourself harm, because of me.”
“Do myself fiddlesticks,” cried Sir Giles. “I’m as strong as a horse, ain’t I, Dunning? Be off with you, be off with you; don’t you hear? I’ll throw my stick at you if you don’t scuttle, you son of a——. Hey! you can tell my lady I’m as well as either you or she.”
“Yes, Sir Giles,” said Dunning, stolid and calm. But he did not go away.
“It wouldn’t be fair,” Sir Giles went on, forgetting what he had said. “I say fair play all the world over. Women don’t understand it. It’s a capital joke, and I didn’t think you had so much fun in you. But it wouldn’t be fair.”
“Don’t be a fool, Giles,” said Lady Piercey angrily. “If you don’t see it’s necessary, why, then, you can’t see an inch before your nose; and to argue with you isn’t any good.”
“No,” he said, “perhaps it isn’t. I’m an obstinate old fool, and so are you an obstinate old fool, Mary Ann. And between us both we’ve made a mess of it. It wasn’t altogether our fault, perhaps, for it was Nature that began,” said the old gentleman, with something like a whimper breaking into his voice. “Nature, the worst of all, for you cannot do anything with that. Not a thing! We’ve tried our best. Yes; I believe you tried your best, my lady, watching and worrying; and I’ve tried my best, leaving things alone. But none of us can do anything. We can’t, you know, not if we were to go on till Doomsday; and we’re two old folks, and we can’t go on much longer. It’s not altogether your fault, and neither is it mine; but we’ll go to our graves, by-and-by, and we’ll leave behind us—we’ll leave behind us——”
Here the old gentleman, probably betrayed by the previous disturbance of his laughter, fell into a kind of nervous crying, half exclamations, half laughing, half tears.