"Oh, Arthur!" groaned the curate again, and nodded his head, speechless.
"Beg your pardon—sorry I offended you—but she has got a large waist, you know—devilish large waist," Pen continued—the third bottle evidently beginning to act upon the young gentleman.
"It's not Miss Portman," the other said, in a voice of agony.
"Is it any body at Chatteries or at Clapham? Somebody here? No—it ain't old Pybus? it can't be Miss Rolt at the factory—she's only fourteen."
"It's somebody rather older than I am, Pen," the curate cried, looking up at his friend, and then guiltily casting his eyes down into his plate.
Pen burst out laughing. "It's Madame Fribsby, by Jove, it's Madame Fribsby. Madame Frib, by the immortal gods!"
The curate could contain no more. "O Pen," he cried, "how can you suppose that any of those—of those more than ordinary beings you have named, could have an influence upon this heart, when I have been daily in the habit of contemplating perfection! I may be insane, I may be madly ambitious, I may be presumptuous—but for two years my heart has been filled by one image, and has known no other idol. Haven't I loved you as a son, Arthur?—say, hasn't Charles Smirke loved you as a son?"
"Yes, old boy, you've been very good to me," Pen said, whose liking, however, for his tutor was not by any means of the filial kind.
"My means," rushed on Smirke, "are at present limited, I own, and my mother is not so liberal as might be desired; but what she has will be mine at her death. Were she to hear of my marrying a lady of rank and good fortune, my mother would be liberal, I am sure she would be liberal. Whatever I have or subsequently inherit—and it's five hundred a year at the very least—would be settled upon her and—and—and you at my death—that is—"
"What the deuce do you mean?—and what have I to do with your money?" cried out Pen, in a puzzle.