And a voice was heard from the captain's bedroom, a well-known voice, which said, "I'd loike a dthrop of dthrink, Bows, I'm thirstee." And not sorry, perhaps, to hear that such was the state of things, and that Pen's forsaken was consoling herself, Warrington took his leave of the irascible musician.
As luck would have it, he passed the lodge door just as Mr. Huxter was in the act of frightening the children with the mask whereof we have spoken, and Fanny was smiling languidly at his farces. Warrington laughed bitterly. "Are all women like that?" he thought. "I think there's one that's not," he added, with a sigh.
At Piccadilly, waiting for the Richmond omnibus, George fell in with Major Pendennis, bound in the same direction, and he told the old gentleman of what he had seen and heard respecting Fanny.
Major Pendennis was highly delighted: and as might be expected of such a philosopher, made precisely the same observation as that which had escaped from Warrington. "All women are the same," he said. "La petite se console. Dayme, when I used to read 'Télémaque' at school, Calypso ne pouvait se consoler—you know the rest, Warrington—I used to say it was absard. Absard, by Gad, and so it is. And so she's got a new soupirant has she, the little porteress? Dayvlish nice little girl. How mad Pen will be—eh, Warrington? But we must break it to him gently, or he'll be in such a rage that he will be going after her again. We must ménager the young fellow."
"I think Mrs. Pendennis ought to know that Pen acted very well in the business. She evidently thinks him guilty, and according to Mr. Bows, Arthur behaved like a good fellow," Warrington said.
"My dear Warrington," said the major, with a look of some alarm. "In Mrs. Pendennis's agitated state of health and that sort of thing, the best way, I think, is not to say a single word about the subject—or, stay, leave it to me: and I'll talk to her—break it to her gently, you know, and that sort of a thing. I give you my word I will. And so Calypso's consoled, is she?" And he sniggered over this gratifying truth, happy in the corner of the omnibus during the rest of the journey.
Pen was very anxious to hear from his envoy what had been the result of the latter's mission; and as soon as the two young men could be alone, the embassador spoke in reply to Arthur's eager queries.
"You remember your poem, Pen, of Ariadne in Naxos," Warrington said; "devilish bad poetry it was, to be sure."
"Apres?" asked Pen, in a great state of excitement.
"When Theseus left Ariadne, do you remember what happened to her, young fellow?"