“You are not a literary man, Foker,” Pen said, laughing, and hooking his arm into his friend’s. “You must know I have been writing a novel, and some of the papers have spoken very well of it. Perhaps you don’t read the Sunday Papers?”
“I read Bell’s Life regular, old boy,” Mr Foker answered: at which Pen laughed again, and the three gentlemen proceeded in great good-humour to Lady Clavering’s house.
The subject of the novel was resumed after luncheon by Miss Amory, who indeed loved poets and men of letters if she loved anything, and was sincerely an artist in feeling. “Some of the passages in the book made me cry, positively they did,” she said.
Pen said, with some fatuity, “I am happy to think I have a part of vos larmes, Miss Blanche,”—and the Major (who had not read more than six pages of Pen’s book) put on his sanctified look, saying, “Yes, there are some passages quite affecting, mons’ous affecting:” and,—“Oh, if it makes you cry,”—Lady Amory declared she would not read it, “that she wouldn’t.”
“Don’t, mamma,” Blanche said, with a French shrug of her shoulders; and then she fell into a rhapsody about the book, about the snatches of poetry interspersed in it about the two heroines, Leonora and Neaera; about the two heroes, Walter Lorraine and his rival the young Duke—“and what good company you introduce us to,” said the young lady archly “quel ton! How much of your life have you passed at court, and are you a prime minister’s son, Mr. Arthur?”
Pen began to laugh—“It is as cheap for a novelist to create a Duke as to make a Baronet,” he said. “Shall I tell you a secret, Miss Amory? I promoted all my characters at the request of the publisher. The young Duke was only a young Baron when the novel was first written; his false friend, the Viscount, was a simple commoner and so on with all the characters of the story.”
“What a wicked, satirical, pert young man you have become! Comme vous voila forme!” said the young lady. “How different from Arthur Pendennis of the country! Ah! I think I like Arthur Pendennis of the country best, though!” and she gave him the full benefit of her eyes,—both of the fond appealing glance into his own, and of the modest look downwards towards the carpet, which showed off her dark eyelids and long fringed lashes.
Pen of course protested that he had not changed in the least, to which the young lady replied by a tender sigh; and thinking that she had done quite enough to make Arthur happy or miserable (as the case might be), she proceeded to cajole his companion, Mr. Harry Foker, who during the literary conversation had sate silently imbibing the head of his cane, and wishing that he was a clever chap like that Pen.
If the Major thought that by telling Miss Amory of Mr. Foker’s engagement to his cousin, Lady Ann Milton (which information the old gentleman neatly conveyed to the girl as he sate by her side at luncheon below-stairs),—if, we say, the Major thought that the knowledge of this fact would prevent Blanche from paying any further attention to the young heir of Foker’s Entire, he was entirely mistaken. She became only the more gracious to Foker: she praised him, and everything belonging to him; she praised his mamma; she praised the pony which he rode in the Park; she praised the lovely breloques or gimcracks which the young gentleman wore at his watch-chain, and that dear little darling of a cane, and those dear little delicious monkeys’ heads with ruby eyes, which ornamented Harry’s shirt, and formed the buttons of his waistcoat. And then, having praised and coaxed the weak youth until he blushed and tingled with pleasure, and until Pen thought she really had gone quite far enough, she took another theme.
“I am afraid Mr. Foker is a very sad young man,” she said, turning round to Pen.