“Oh, don’t read any more, Tom; it is not worth your while to read anymore.”
“Ah, you are hit!” he said, “Hurrah! the iron has entered into your soul.”
“‘Half a dozen pages of “Imogen” will, however’ (he continued, reading), ‘be enough to make any reader pause who is moved by this natural sentiment. What! he will ask himself, was there no little war in hand demanding recruits? no expedition to discover the undiscoverable? even no stones to break on the road-side, which could have given Mr. Albert Russell a bit of manly work to do—that he must take up with this industry reserved for the incompetent?’”
Here Lucy uttered a long drawn “Oh!” of alarm. It had not occurred to her ignorance that there could be any malice in it.
“‘We must give him credit, however, for a courage and liberality beyond that of his feminine contemporaries in the freedom with which he has mixed up what is apparently a personal romance of his own with this production of his genius. Whether the young lady who is poetically addressed as the Angel of Hope will relish the homage so publicly paid to her is a different matter. We can but hope that, since the art he has adopted is little likely, we fear, to reward his exertions, the other patronesses to whom he devotes himself may be more kind, and that the owner of the pretty Christian name which is presented without the conventionality of a Miss or Mistress—’
“Hallo!” said Sir Tom. He had been reading on, without any particular attention to what he read, until the recollection of what it meant suddenly flashed upon him. He grew very red, put down the paper, and looked at his companions. “By Jove!” he cried.
“I told you not to read it,” cried Lady Randolph. “Never mind, Lucy, my love, nobody will know it is you. Oh, I could kill the presumptuous, impertinent— And that woman is worse!” she cried, with vehemence. “She who knew all about it; I will never forgive her. She shall never enter this house.”
“Woman?” said Sir Thomas, “what woman? By Jove!” here he got up and buttoned his coat, “whoever the fellow is he shall have my opinion of him before he is much older.”
“Sit down, Tom, sit down. If it was a fellow whom you could knock down there would be no great harm done; no fellow ever wrote that,” cried Lady Randolph, with that fine contempt of masculine efforts which is peculiar to women. “Oh, I know the hand! I know every stroke! But never mind, never mind, my dear child, nobody will connect you with it; unless the ‘Age’ gets hold of it, and gives us all a paragraph: there is nothing more likely,” she cried with tears of anger and annoyance. As for Sir Thomas, he paced about the room in great perturbation, saying, “By Jove!” under his breath.
“A woman! then there is nothing to be done,” he said. “Oh, no; you can’t knock her down, more’s the pity! or call her out. But, Tom, if you will think, it is just as well, it is far better; we can’t have any talk got up about that innocent child.”