“Especially after her behaviour the other night in the forest. It is the same with all you gentlemen; the worse you are treated, the more grateful you are. Oh yes, we heard of it; but we wonʼt tell Mrs. Hutton.”
“No, indeed, I hope you wonʼt. I should be very sorry for her to get even a hint of it.”
“To be sure,” laughed Georgie, “to be sure we will keep the secret, for ever so many reasons; one of them being that Dr. Hutton would be obliged to part with Miss Polly, if her mistress knew of her conduct. But I must not be so rude. I see you want to be off quite as much as fair Polly does. Ah, what a thing it is to have a happy home!”
Here Mrs. Corklemore sighed very deeply. If a woman who always has her own way, and a woman who is always scheming, can be happy, she, Georgie, must be so; but she wanted to stir compassion.
“Come,” she said, after turning away, for she had such a jacket on—the most bewitching thing; it was drawn in tight at her round little waist, and seemed made like a horseʼs body–clothes, on purpose for her to trot out in,—“come, Dr. Hutton, say good–bye, and forgive me for beating you.” Simple creature, of course she knew not the “sacra fames” of chess–players.
“We must have our return–match. I wonʼt say ‘good–bye’ until you have promised me that. Shall it be at my house?”
“No. There is only one place in the world where I would dare to attack you again, and that is Nowelhurst Hall.”
“And why there, more than anywhere else?”
“Because there is a set of men there, with which I can beat anybody. I believe I could beat Morphy, with those men at Nowelhurst. Ah! you think me, I see, grossly and stupidly superstitious. Well, perhaps I am. I do sympathise so with everything.”
“I hope we may meet at Nowelhurst,” replied Rufus, preparing his blow of Jarnac, “when they have recovered a little from their sad distress.”