“Ah, bah! I play with you, aunt, cartes sur table! Mr. George only did what everybody else would do; and we have no right to be angry with him, really we haven't. Molly herself acknowledged as much, after her first burst of grief was over, and I brought her to listen to reason. The silly old creature! to be so wild about a young lad at her time of life!”
“'Twas a real passion, I almost do believe,” said Madame de Bernstein.
“You should have heard her take leave of him. C'etait touchant, ma parole d'honneur! I cried. Before George, I could not help myself. The young fellow with muddy stockings, and his hair about his eyes, flings himself amongst us when we were at dinner; makes his offer to Molly in a very frank and noble manner, and in good language too; and she replies. Begad, it put me in mind of Mrs. Woffington in the new Scotch play, that Lord Bute's man has wrote—Douglas—what d'ye call it? She clings round the lad: she bids him adieu in heartrending accents. She steps out of the room in a stately despair—no more chocolate, thank you. If she had made a mauvais pas no one could retire from it with more dignity. 'Twas a masterly retreat after a defeat. We were starved out of our position, but we retired with all the honours of war.”
“Molly won't die of the disappointment!” said my lord's aunt, sipping her cup.
My lord snarled a grin, and showed his yellow teeth. “He, he!” he said, “she hath once or twice before had the malady very severely, and recovered perfectly. It don't kill, as your ladyship knows, at Molly's age.”
How should her ladyship know? She did not marry Doctor Tusher until she was advanced in life. She did not become Madame de Bernstein until still later. Old Dido, a poet remarks, was not ignorant of misfortune, and hence learned to have compassion on the wretched.
People in the little world, as I have been told, quarrel and fight, and go on abusing each other, and are not reconciled for ever so long. But people in the great world are surely wiser in their generation. They have differences; they cease seeing each other. They make it up and come together again, and no questions are asked. A stray prodigal, or a stray puppy-dog, is thus brought in under the benefit of an amnesty, though you know he has been away in ugly company. For six months past, ever since the Castlewoods and Madame de Bernstein had been battling for possession of poor Harry Warrington, these two branches of the Esmond family had remained apart. Now, the question being settled, they were free to meet again, as though no difference ever had separated them: and Madame de Bernstein drove in her great coach to Lady Castlewood's rout, and the Esmond ladies appeared smiling at Madame de Bernstein's drums, and loved each other just as much as they previously had done.
“So, sir, I hear you have acted like a hard-hearted monster about your poor brother Harry!” says the Baroness, delighted, and menacing George with her stick.
“I acted but upon your ladyship's hint, and desired to see whether it was for himself or his reputed money that his kinsfolk wanted to have him,” replies George, turning rather red.
“Nay, Maria could not marry a poor fellow who was utterly penniless, and whose elder brother said he would give him nothing!”