Fitz. It is my fate to appear continually before you in the character of the Mysterious Warner of penny romance. Mrs. Van Brugh, once more, beware of Smailey. That abject man is going at you again.
Mrs. V. B. Has he not done with me yet? Can I be poorer than I am—or more unhappy—or more despised?
Fitz. He proposes to make you so, but he will be sold.
Eve. But with what motive does he do this?
Fitz. Revenge. To adapt the words of the poet to Smailey’s frame of mind, “Revenge is sweet, especially on women.”
Mrs. V. B. Revenge on me! Through him, whom I have never injured, I have lost my home, my fortune, and my good name, and he seeks revenge on me?
Fitz. Mrs. Van Brugh, if it is a source of pain to you to know that your friends have cut you, it may console you to know, that in their strict impartiality they have also cut him. He is hooted in the streets. His windows are a public cockshy. Nobody is at home to him, and though he is at home to everybody, it is to no purpose. The very tradesmen refuse to supply him. He is a desolate, and a hungry being, and nobody calls on him except the taxes.
Eve. I fear, Mr. Fitz Partington, that you may yourself have suffered from your association with this man.
Fitz. (to Eve). I? I believe you! Why I go about in fear of my life. Not only am I deprived of the necessaries of existence, but I have become the very focus of public execration. I couldn’t be more unpopular if I had come down to stand for the borough.