“This is the fifth false alarm of the gout having gone to his stomach within the last two years,” continue I, resentfully. “I declare to Heaven, that if it has not really gone there this time, I’ll cut the whole concern.”
Let no one cast up their eyes in horror, imagining that it is my father to whom I am thus alluding; it is only a great uncle by marriage, in consideration of whose wealth and vague promises I have dawdled professionless through twenty-eight years of my life.
“You must not go,” says Elizabeth, giving my hand an imploring squeeze. “The man in the Bible said, ‘I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come;’ why should it be a less valid excuse now a days?”
“If I recollect rightly, it was considered rather a poor one even then,” reply I, dryly.
Elizabeth is unable to contradict this, she therefore only lifts two pouted lips (Monsieur Taine objects to the redness of English women’s mouths, but I do not) to be kissed, and says, “Stay.” I am good enough to comply with her unspoken request, though I remain firm with regard to her spoken one.
“My dearest child,” I say, with an air of worldly experience and superior wisdom, “kisses are very good things—in fact there are few better—but one cannot live upon them.”
“Let us try,” she says, coaxingly.
“I wonder which would get tired first?” I say, laughing. But she only goes on pleading, “Stay, stay.”
“How can I stay?” I cry, impatiently; “you talk as if I wanted to go! Do you think it is any pleasanter to me to leave you than to you to be left? But you know his disposition, his rancorous resentment of fancied neglects. For the sake of two days’ indulgence, must I throw away what will keep us in ease and plenty to the end of our days?”
“I do not care for plenty,” she says, with a little petulant gesture. “I do not see that rich people are any happier than poor ones. Look at the St. Clairs; they have £40,000 a-year, and she is a miserable woman, perfectly miserable, because her face gets red after dinner.”