Sylvia. Forgive me, dear sir, but you wrong me. My papa will believe me when I assure him that there’s no one I could marry sooner than another.
Mr F. Then pray, miss, what does all this mean that Madam has been telling me, having heard it from Mrs Hamlin, about some nephew of Captain Colquhoun’s?
Sylvia. I don’t know, sir, I’m sure, what you may have heard from Mrs Freyne, but the only relative of the Captain with whom I am acquainted is the humble servant of another lady.
Mr F. It en’t an unheard-of thing for a lover to change his divinity.
Sylvia. Indeed, sir, I can assure you that the very last time I saw him the gentleman protested to me his unaltered devotion to his original charmer.
Mr F. Then Madam has been trying to make mischief, curse me if she hasn’t! Give me a kiss, my girl. You deserve something for answering with so much sense and calmness questions over which most young Misses would have fallen into fits, and you shan’t be drove into any marriage to please her. You may have this coming cold weather to look about you and decide whom you’ll have. But mind you, there’s to be no coquetting first with one and then with another. The first sign I see of that, I vow I’ll marry you off next day to the oldest and ugliest gentleman of my acquaintance. I won’t have half the young sparks of Calcutta killing t’other half in duels about my daughter.
Sylvia. ’Twill be no hardship to me to obey you, sir. I believe I prefer the elder gentlemen to the younger. If you choose, I’ll adopt Captain Colquhoun as my cavalier whenever he’s present.
Mr F. As you did yesterday? By all means, miss. But you’re not to set yourself to break the poor Captain’s heart because you think him old and ugly. He’s the most respectable person in Calcutta, save Padra Bellamy and one or two more, and also the most foolish and the worst treated.
Sylvia. You surprise me, sir.
Mr F. He’s the most foolish because, in company with Captain Jones of the Train,[22] he persists in running his head against a stone wall. Only last week they were told not to come troubling the Council with their nonsense, having been pressing them for the hundredth time to put the place into a state of defence. And he’s also foolish because, when he might have been transferred two years ago to the Carnatic he refused to go, lest he should seem to be running away from his enemies here, and you won’t wonder that he’s ill-treated after what I have told you.