“What do you think of him?”
“He seems gentlemanly enough.”
“Could you have run off with him, Theresa?”
“As soon with O’Twist!”
I had made up my mind to have Conny given me to take into dinner; but to my great relief and pleasure, she took her papa’s arm, Curling conducted Mrs. Hargrave, and I was left to Theresa. Curling and his mother-in-law walked in front of us from the drawing-room, and I had great difficulty to retrain myself from bursting into a fit of laughter on catching sight of my aunt’s face, and watching the contemptuous air with which she waddled alongside her new connexion. Theresa begged me not to speak to her, lest she should lose her self-control. The sight was, indeed, ludicrous enough; and one of the servants, at all events, saw the joke, for she turned rapidly away as my aunt entered the dining-room and emitted a laugh over the sideboard, which made my uncle look smartly round under the impression, I believe, that a cork had flown.
The dinner was not a very lively affair. Nothing but the having Theresa at my side saved me from wishing myself a hundred miles away. In vain my uncle strove to be cheerful; in vain he told his best stories; in vain he indulged in little flirting allusions to matrimony, and winked out, so to speak, those little modest jokes which are universally held to be permissible on the occasion of the presence of a newly married couple. God knows no man ever tried to laugh more resolutely than I did; but my hoarse notes were as destitute of mirth as a raven’s croak. Had I wept I should have shown myself more sympathetic; for my uncle’s humour tottered on the very verge of tears.
Theresa did all she could: tried her relations on twenty different subjects, then out of sheer weariness took refuge in silence.
Curling was so nervous, he could scarcely eat. I felt for him—yes, my whole heart went out to him—when he knocked a wine-glass full of claret over the table-cloth. The wine wasn’t redder than his face, I promise you.
“Don’t bother,” said my uncle, seeing the poor fellow spoon the wine up.
“Sprinkle some salt over it,” said Conny, looking abject.