Meanwhile, Mr. Sutton’s flirtation with, or rather at our heroine, for he had it all to himself, was in active progress. He made himself intolerable by the airs and graces he assumed, to recommend himself to her favor. He never tied his cravat, nor wrapped a papillote without a design upon her heart. He followed her about the garden, paying the most vapid compliments, or, intruding into the parlor, while she and her mother were reading, amused them with “easie sighs which men do breathe in love.” She attempted at first to repel him with witty sarcasms, but that, as Wallis remarked, “was like Queen Christina shooting at a fly—his apprehension was so small it could scarcely be hit.” She darted contempt at him from her bright black eyes, and curled her lip in the most unequivocal fashion, but that only made her look prettier, and he could see no deeper. She essayed a plain rebuff, but he thought it a capital joke. It never entered his head that Mr. Bromwell Sutton could be any thing but irresistible to a Miss Thompson. To get rid of him, she at last found entirely out of the question, and wearied of her efforts, she concluded to let him take his own course. This passiveness seemed to him so encouraging, that one day he was on the point of making a declaration and was only prevented by the dinner-bell.
Towards the artist he continued his patronizing condescension, with a not unfrequent interlude of actual incivility, which, to the surprise even of Miss Thompson, that gentleman passed over with unresisting composure. On the present occasion the latter variation predominated, and after they had left the table, Miss Thompson remarked “I wonder Mr. Oakley, at your patience in submitting to the impertinences of that popinjay!”
“You would not have me challenge him?” said the painter.
“That would be rather too heroic,—your position is as defenceless as my own. These “gentlemen’s sons!”—if I were a man, there is no reproach I should dread, more than being called one of them!”
“Rather a sweeping condemnation,” said the artist, smiling; “but I think I have prepared a revenge that will reach the specimen before us;” and having perceived the subject of their remarks approaching from the summer-house, he called to him, “Will you step here, for a moment, Mr. Sutton?”
“I can’t—I haven’t time;” said Sutton, hurrying on, and they both noticed in him marks of much perturbation.
“Your portrait is finished, and I wish you to see it;” persisted Oakley.
His portrait was too closely connected with himself, not to have influenced him under any circumstances, and, accordingly, he stopped while the painter left the room for it, calling, as he did so, “Mr. Wallis—landlord—gentlemen,—I wish to have your opinion of Mr. Sutton’s portrait; oblige me by coming into the parlor.”
They complied and the picture, which was of a miniature size, was placed in the proper light. Miss Thompson gave it a single glance, and burst into an apparently irrepressible laugh. Mrs. Thompson, regarding her with much surprise, drew up her eyes, and stooped forward to examine it, and then, though she gave her daughter and the artist a deprecating look, she also turned away to conceal a smile. Wallis turned first to the picture, then to Sutton, and then to Cupidon, and made no effort to restrain his mirth, in which he was joined by the party of spectators who had accompanied him. Every one perceived that it was a correct likeness of Sutton in features, while the expression was strikingly that of the little poodle. The dandy himself could not fail to recognize it, and looked around him, pale with wrath and mortification, bestowing the fiercest of his looks on Miss Thompson.
“You don’t tell me what you think of my performance, Mr. Sutton,” said Oakley, with much gravity.