He thought that she was moved by sheer wanton brutality; and cringing, smarting under the lash of her tongue, seeing himself for the moment as others saw him--a mean little jackanapes mimicking his betters--he could have strangled her. But he was dumb.
"You had the audacity," Sophia continued, gravely, "to attend me once, I remember, and ply me with your foolish compliments! And you have written to this lady, you, a shopman----"
"I am not a--a shopman!" he stuttered, writhing.
"In grade you are; it were more honour to you were you one in reality!" she retorted. "But I repeat it, you have written to this lady, who, the better to teach you a lesson, did not at once betray what she thought you. For the future, however, understand, sir. If you pester her with attentions, or even cross her path, I will find those who will cane you into behaviour. And in such a way that you will not forget it! For the rest, let me advise you to get rid of those preposterous clothes, change that sword for an ell-wand, and go back to your counter. You may retire now. Or no! Pettitt!" Sophia continued, as she opened the door, "Pettitt!" to Lady Betty's woman, "show this person downstairs."
He sneaked out, dumb. For what was he to say? They were great ladies, and he a person, fit company for the steward's room, a little above the servants' hall. He bent his head under the maid's scornful eye, hurried, stumbling in his boots, down the narrow stairs, nor did he breathe until he reached the dark street, where his little chest beginning to heave, he burst into scalding tears of rage.
He suffered horribly in his tenderest part--his conceit. He burned miserably, impotently, poor weakling, to be revenged. If he could bring those proud women to their knees! If he could see them humbled, as they had humbled him! If he could show them that he was not the poor creature they deemed him! If he could sear their insolent faces--the smallpox seize them! If he could--aye, the smallpox seize them!
Presently he slunk back to the White Lion, where he had his bed; and, finding a fire still burning in the empty taproom--for the evening was chilly--he took refuge there, and, laying his head on the beer-stained table, wept anew. The next time he looked up he found that a man and woman had entered the room, and were standing on the hearth, gazing curiously at him.
CHAPTER XVI
[THE PAVED FORD]
If Lady Betty's sprightliness ever deserted her, it returned with the morning as regularly as the light. But by Sophia the depressing influence of a strange place, viewed through sheets of rain, was felt to the full next day. The mind must be strong that does not tinge the future with the colours which the eye presents at the moment; and her's was nowise superior to the temptation. Her spirits, as she rose amid the discomforts of a Sussex inn--and Sussex inns and Sussex roads were then reputed among the worst in England--and prepared to continue the journey, were at their lowest ebb. She dreaded the meeting, now so imminent, with Sir Hervey. She shrank as the bather on the verge of the stream shrinks, from the new sphere, the new home, the new duties on which the day must see her enter; and enter unsupported by love. She was cold, she shook, her knees quaked under her; she had golden visions of what might have been, and her heart sobbed as she plucked herself from them. To Lady Betty's eye, and in the phrase of the day, she had the vapours; alas, she suffered with better reason that the fine ladies who had lately made them the fashion.