Three weeks after Richard arrived in town, his cousin Clare was
married, under the blessings of her energetic mother, and with the
approbation of her kinsfolk, to the husband that had been expeditiously
chosen for her. The gentleman, though something more than twice the age
of his bride, had no idea of approaching senility for many long
connubial years to come. Backed by his tailor and his hairdresser, he
presented no such bad figure at the altar, and none would have thought
that he was an ancient admirer of his bride’s mama, as certainly none
knew he had lately proposed for Mrs. Doria before there was any
question of her daughter. These things were secrets; and the elastic
and happy appearance of Mr. John Todhunter did not betray them at the
altar. Perhaps he would rather have married the mother. He was a man of
property, well born, tolerably well educated, and had, when Mrs. Doria
rejected him for the first time, the reputation of being a fool—which a
wealthy man may have in his youth; but as he lived on, and did not
squander his money—amassed it, on the contrary, and did not seek to go
into Parliament, and did other negative wise things, the world’s
opinion, as usual, veered completely round, and John Todhunter was
esteemed a shrewd, sensible man—only not brilliant; that he was
brilliant could not be said of him. In fact, the man could hardly talk,
and it was a fortunate provision that no impromptu deliveries were
required of him in the marriage-service.
Mrs. Doria had her own reasons for being in a hurry. She had discovered
something of the strange impassive nature of her child; not from any
confession of Clare’s, but from signs a mother can read when, her eyes
are not resolutely shut. She saw with alarm and anguish that Clare had
fallen into the pit she had been digging for her so laboriously. In
vain she entreated the baronet to break the disgraceful, and, as she
said, illegal alliance his son had contracted. Sir Austin would not
even stop the little pension to poor Berry. “At least you will do that,
Austin,” she begged pathetically. “You will show your sense of that
horrid woman’s conduct?” He refused to offer up any victim to console
her. Then Mrs. Doria told him her thoughts,—and when an outraged
energetic lady is finally brought to exhibit these painfully hoarded
treasures, she does not use half words as a medium. His System, and his
conduct generally were denounced to him, without analysis. She let him
understand that the world laughed at him; and he heard this from her at
a time when his mask was still soft and liable to be acted on by his
nerves. “You are weak, Austin! weak, I tell you!” she said, and, like
all angry and self-interested people, prophecy came easy to her. In her
heart she accused him of her own fault, in imputing to him the wreck of
her project. The baronet allowed her to revel in the proclamation of a
dire future, and quietly counselled her to keep apart from him, which
his sister assured him she would do.
But to be passive in calamity is the province of no woman. Mark the
race at any hour. “What revolution and hubbub does not that little
instrument, the needle, avert from us!” says The Pilgrim’s Scrip. Alas,
that in calamity women cannot stitch! Now that she saw Clare wanted
other than iron, it struck her she must have a husband, and be made
secure as a woman and a wife. This seemed the thing to do: and, as she
had forced the iron down Clare’s throat, so she forced the husband, and
Clare gulped at the latter as she had at the former. On the very day
that Mrs. Doria had this new track shaped out before her, John
Todhunter called at the Foreys’. “Old John!” sang out Mrs. Doria, “show
him up to me. I want to see him particularly.” He sat with her alone.
He was a man multitudes of women would have married—whom will they
not?—and who would have married any presentable woman: but women do
want asking, and John never had the word. The rape of such men is left
to the practical animal. So John sat alone with his old flame. He had
become resigned to her perpetual lamentation and living Suttee for his
defunct rival. But, ha! what meant those soft glances now—addressed to
him? His tailor and his hairdresser gave youth to John, but they had
not the art to bestow upon him distinction, and an undistinguished man
what woman looks at? John was an indistinguishable man. For that reason
he was dry wood to a soft glance.
And now she said: “It is time you should marry; and you are the man to
be the guide and helper of a young woman, John. You are well
preserved—younger than most of the young men of our day. You are
eminently domestic, a good son, and will be a good husband and good
father. Some one you must marry.—What do you think of Clare for a wife
for you?”
At first John Todhunter thought it would be very much like his marrying
a baby. However, he listened to it, and that was enough for Mrs. Doria.
She went down to John’s mother, and consulted with her on the propriety
of the scheme of wedding her daughter to John in accordance with his
proposition. Mrs. Todhunter’s jealousy of any disturbing force in the
influence she held over her son Mrs. Doria knew to be one of the causes
of John’s remaining constant to the impression she had afore-time
produced on him. She spoke so kindly of John, and laid so much stress
on the ingrained obedience and passive disposition of her daughter,
that Mrs. Todhunter was led to admit she did think it almost time John
should be seeking a mate, and that he—all things considered—would
hardly find a fitter one. And this, John Todhunter—old John no
more—heard to his amazement when, a day or two subsequently, he
instanced the probable disapproval of his mother.
The match was arranged. Mrs. Doria did the wooing. It consisted in
telling Clare that she had come to years when marriage was desirable,
and that she had fallen into habits of moping which might have the
worse effect on her future life, as it had on her present health and
appearance, and which a husband would cure. Richard was told by Mrs.
Doria that Clare had instantaneously consented to accept Mr. John
Todhunter as lord of her days, and with more than obedience—with
alacrity. At all events, when Richard spoke to Clare, the strange
passive creature did not admit constraint on her inclinations. Mrs.
Doria allowed Richard to speak to her. She laughed at his futile
endeavours to undo her work, and the boyish sentiments he uttered on
the subject. “Let us see, child,” she said, “let us see which turns out
the best; a marriage of passion, or a marriage of common sense.”
Heroic efforts were not wanting to arrest the union. Richard made
repeated journeys to Hounslow, where Ralph was quartered, and if Ralph
could have been persuaded to carry off a young lady who did not love
him, from the bridegroom her mother averred she did love, Mrs. Doria
might have been defeated. But Ralph in his cavalry quarters was cooler
than Ralph in the Bursley meadows. “Women are oddities, Dick,” he
remarked, running a finger right and left along his upper lip. “Best
leave them to their own freaks. She’s a dear girl, though she doesn’t
talk: I like her for that. If she cared for me I’d go the race. She
never did. It’s no use asking a girl twice. She knows whether she cares
a fig for a fellow.”
The hero quitted him with some contempt. As Ralph Morton was a young
man, and he had determined that John Todhunter was an old man, he
sought another private interview with Clare, and getting her alone,
said: “Clare, I’ve come to you for the last time. Will you marry Ralph
Morton?”
To which Clare replied, “I cannot marry two husbands, Richard.”
“Will you refuse to marry this old man?”
“I must do as mama wishes.”
“Then you’re going to marry an old man—a man you don’t love, and can’t
love! Oh, good God! do you know what you’re doing?” He flung about in a
fury. “Do you know what it is? Clare!” he caught her two hands
violently, “have you any idea of the horror you’re going to commit?”
She shrank a little at his vehemence, but neither blushed nor
stammered: answering: “I see nothing wrong in doing what mama thinks
right, Richard.”
“Your mother! I tell you it’s an infamy, Clare! It’s a miserable sin! I
tell you, if I had done such a thing I would not live an hour after it.
And coldly to prepare for it! to be busy about your dresses! They told
me when I came in that you were with the milliner. To be smiling over
the horrible outrage! decorating yourself!”...
“Dear Richard,” said Clare, “you will make me very unhappy.”
“That one of my blood should be so debased!” he cried, brushing angrily
at his face. “Unhappy! I beg you to feel for yourself, Clare. But I
suppose,” and he said it scornfully, “girls don’t feel this sort of
shame.”
She grew a trifle paler.
“Next to mama, I would wish to please you, dear Richard.”
“Have you no will of your own?” he exclaimed.
She looked at him softly; a look he interpreted for the meekness he
detested in her.
“No, I believe you have none!” he added. “And what can I do? I can’t
step forward and stop this accursed marriage. If you would but say a
word I would save you; but you tie my hands. And they expect me to
stand by and see it done!”
“Will you not be there, Richard?” said Clare, following the question
with her soft eyes. It was the same voice that had so thrilled him on
his marriage morn.
“Oh, my darling Clare!” he cried in the kindest way he had ever used to
her, “if you knew how I feel this!” and now as he wept she wept, and
came insensibly into his arms.
“My darling Clare!” he repeated.
She said nothing, but seemed to shudder, weeping.
“You will do it, Clare? You will be sacrificed? So lovely as you are,
too!... Clare! you cannot be quite blind. If I dared speak to you, and
tell you all.... Look up. Can you still consent?”
“I must not disobey mama,” Clare murmured, without looking up from the
nest her cheek had made on his bosom.
“Then kiss me for the last time,” said Richard. “I’ll never kiss you
after it, Clare.”
He bent his head to meet her mouth, and she threw her arms wildly round
him, and kissed him convulsively, and clung to his lips, shutting her
eyes, her face suffused with a burning red.
Then he left her, unaware of the meaning of those passionate kisses.
Argument with Mrs. Doria was like firing paper-pellets against a stone
wall. To her indeed the young married hero spoke almost indecorously,
and that which his delicacy withheld him from speaking to Clare. He
could provoke nothing more responsive from the practical animal than
“Pooh-pooh! Tush, tush! and Fiddlededee!”
“Really,” Mrs. Doria said to her intimates, “that boy’s education acts
like a disease on him. He cannot regard anything sensibly. He is for
ever in some mad excess of his fancy, and what he will come to at last
heaven only knows! I sincerely pray that Austin will be able to bear
it.”
Threats of prayer, however, that harp upon their sincerity, are not
very well worth having. Mrs. Doria had embarked in a practical
controversy, as it were, with her brother. Doubtless she did trust he
would be able to bear his sorrows to come, but one who has uttered
prophecy can barely help hoping to see it fulfilled: she had prophecied
much grief to the baronet.
Poor John Todhunter, who would rather have married the mother, and had
none of your heroic notions about the sacred necessity for love in
marriage, moved as one guiltless of offence, and deserving his
happiness. Mrs. Doria shielded him from the hero. To see him smile at
Clare’s obedient figure, and try not to look paternal, was touching.
Meantime Clare’s marriage served one purpose. It completely occupied
Richard’s mind, and prevented him from chafing at the vexation of not
finding his father ready to meet him when he came to town. A letter had
awaited Adrian at the hotel, which said, “Detain him till you hear
further from me. Take him about with you into every form of society.”
No more than that. Adrian had to extemporize, that the baronet had gone
down to Wales on pressing business, and would be back in a week or so.
For ulterior inventions and devices wherewith to keep the young
gentleman in town, he applied to Mrs. Doria. “Leave him to me,” said
Mrs. Doria, “I’ll manage him.” And she did.
“Who can say,” asks The Pilgrim’s Scrip, “when he is not walking a
puppet to some woman?”
Mrs. Doria would hear no good of Lucy. “I believe,” she observed, as
Adrian ventured a shrugging protest in her behalf,—“it is my firm
opinion, that a scullery-maid would turn any of you men round her
little finger—only give her time and opportunity.” By dwelling on the
arts of women, she reconciled it to her conscience to do her best to
divide the young husband from his wife till it pleased his father they
should live their unhallowed union again. Without compunction, or a
sense of incongruity, she abused her brother and assisted the
fulfilment of his behests.
So the puppets were marshalled by Mrs. Doria, happy, or sad, or
indifferent. Quite against his set resolve and the tide of his
feelings, Richard found himself standing behind Clare in the church—the
very edifice that had witnessed his own marriage, and heard, “I, Clare
Doria, take thee John Pemberton,” clearly pronounced. He stood with
black brows dissecting the arts of the tailor and hairdresser on
unconscious John. The back, and much of the middle, of Mr. Todhunter’s
head was bald; the back shone like an egg-shell, but across the middle
the artist had drawn two long dabs of hair from the sides, and
plastered them cunningly, so that all save wilful eyes would have
acknowledged the head to be covered. The man’s only pretension was to a
respectable juvenility. He had a good chest, stout limbs, a face
inclined to be jolly. Mrs. Doria had no cause to be put out of
countenance at all by the exterior of her son-in-law: nor was she. Her
splendid hair and gratified smile made a light in the church. Playing
puppets must be an immense pleasure to the practical animal. The Forey
bridesmaids, five in number, and one Miss Doria, their cousin, stood as
girls do stand at these sacrifices, whether happy, sad, or indifferent;
a smile on their lips and tears in attendance. Old Mrs. Todhunter, an
exceedingly small ancient woman, was also there. “I can’t have my boy
John married without seeing it done,” she said, and throughout the
ceremony she was muttering audible encomiums on her John’s manly
behaviour.
The ring was affixed to Clare’s finger; there was no ring lost in this
common-sense marriage. The instant the clergyman bade him employ it,
John drew the ring out, and dropped it on the finger of the cold
passive hand in a businesslike way, as one who had studied the matter.
Mrs. Doria glanced aside at Richard. Richard observed Clare spread out
her fingers that the operation might be the more easily effected.
He did duty in the vestry a few minutes, and then said to his aunt:
“Now I’ll go.”
“You’ll come to the breakfast, child? The Foreys”—
He cut her short. “I’ve stood for the family, and I’ll do no more. I
won’t pretend to eat and make merry over it.”
“Richard!”
“Good-bye.”
She had attained her object and she wisely gave way.
“Well. Go and kiss Clare, and shake his hand. Pray, pray be civil.”
She turned to Adrian, and said: “He is going. You must go with him, and
find some means of keeping him, or he’ll be running off to that woman.
Now, no words—go!”
Richard bade Clare farewell. She put up her mouth to him humbly, but he
kissed her on the forehead.
“Do not cease to love me,” she said in a quavering whisper in his ear.
Mr. Todhunter stood beaming and endangering the art of the hairdresser
with his pocket-handkerchief. Now he positively was married, he thought
he would rather have the daughter than the mother, which is a reverse
of the order of human thankfulness at a gift of the Gods.
“Richard, my boy!” he said heartily, “congratulate me.”
“I should be happy to, if I could,” sedately replied the hero, to the
consternation of those around. Nodding to the bridesmaids and bowing to
the old lady, he passed out.
Adrian, who had been behind him, deputed to watch for a possible
unpleasantness, just hinted to John: “You know, poor fellow, he has got
into a mess with his marriage.”
“Oh! ah! yes!” kindly said John, “poor fellow!”
All the puppets then rolled off to the breakfast.
Adrian hurried after Richard in an extremely discontented state of
mind. Not to be at the breakfast and see the best of the fun, disgusted
him. However, he remembered that he was a philosopher, and the strong
disgust he felt was only expressed in concentrated cynicism on every
earthly matter engendered by the conversation. They walked side by side
into Kensington Gardens. The hero was mouthing away to himself, talking
by fits.
Presently he faced Adrian, crying: “And I might have stopped it! I see
it now! I might have stopped it by going straight to him, and asking
him if he dared marry a girl who did not love him. And I never thought
of it. Good heaven! I feel this miserable affair on my conscience.”
“Ah!” groaned Adrian. “An unpleasant cargo for the conscience, that! I
would rather carry anything on mine than a married couple. Do you
purpose going to him now?”
The hero soliloquized: “He’s not a bad sort of man.”...
“Well, he’s not a Cavalier,” said Adrian, “and that’s why you wonder
your aunt selected him, no doubt? He’s decidedly of the Roundhead type,
with the Puritan extracted, or inoffensive, if latent.”
“There’s the double infamy!” cried Richard, “that a man you can’t call
bad, should do this damned thing!”
“Well, it’s hard we can’t find a villain.”
“He would have listened to me, I’m sure.”
“Go to him now, Richard, my son. Go to him now. It’s not yet too late.
Who knows? If he really has a noble elevated superior mind—though not a
Cavalier in person, he may be one at heart—he might, to please you, and
since you put such stress upon it, abstain...perhaps with some loss of
dignity, but never mind. And the request might be singular, or seem so,
but everything has happened before in this world, you know, my dear
boy. And what an infinite consolation it is for the eccentric, that
reflection!”
The hero was impervious to the wise youth. He stared at him as if he
were but a speck in the universe he visioned.
It was provoking that Richard should be Adrian’s best subject for
cynical pastime, in the extraordinary heterodoxies he started, and his
worst in the way he took it; and the wise youth, against his will, had
to feel as conscious of the young man’s imaginative mental armour, as
he was of his muscular physical.
“The same sort of day!” mused Richard, looking up. “I suppose my
father’s right. We make our own fates, and nature has nothing to do
with it.”
Adrian yawned.
“Some difference in the trees, though,” Richard continued abstractedly.
“Growing bald at the top,” said Adrian.
“Will you believe that my aunt Helen compared the conduct of that
wretched slave Clare to Lucy’s, who, she had the cruel insolence to
say, entangled me into marriage?” the hero broke out loudly and
rapidly. “You know—I told you, Adrian—how I had to threaten and insist,
and how she pleaded, and implored me to wait.”
“Ah! hum!” mumbled Adrian.
“You remember my telling you?” Richard was earnest to hear her
exonerated.
“Pleaded and implored, my dear boy? Oh, no doubt she did. Where’s the
lass that doesn’t.”
“Call my wife by another name, if you please.”
“The generic title can’t be cancelled because of your having married
one of the body, my son.”
“She did all she could to persuade me to wait!” emphasized Richard.
Adrian shook his head with a deplorable smile.
“Come, come, my good Ricky; not all! not all!”
Richard bellowed: “What more could she have done?”
“She could have shaved her head, for instance.”
This happy shaft did stick. With a furious exclamation Richard shot in
front, Adrian following him; and asking him (merely to have his
assumption verified), whether he did not think she might have shaved
her head? and, presuming her to have done so, whether, in candour, he
did not think he would have waited—at least till she looked less of a
rank lunatic?
After a minute or so, the wise youth was but a fly buzzing about
Richard’s head. Three weeks of separation from Lucy, and an excitement
deceased, caused him to have soft yearnings for the dear lovely
home-face. He told Adrian it was his intention to go down that night.
Adrian immediately became serious. He was at a loss what to invent to
detain him, beyond the stale fiction that his father was coming
to-morrow. He rendered homage to the genius of woman in these straits.
“My aunt,” he thought, “would have the lie ready; and not only that,
but she would take care it did its work.”
At this juncture the voice of a cavalier in the Row hailed them,
proving to be the Honourable Peter Brayder, Lord Mountfalcon’s
parasite. He greeted them very cordially; and Richard, remembering some
fun they had in the Island, asked him to dine with them; postponing his
return till the next day. Lucy was his. It was even sweet to dally with
the delight of seeing her.
The Hon. Peter was one who did honour to the body he belonged to.
Though not so tall as a west of London footman, he was as shapely; and
he had a power of making his voice insinuating, or arrogant, as it
suited the exigencies of his profession. He had not a rap of money in
the world; yet he rode a horse, lived high, expended largely. The world
said that the Hon. Peter was salaried by his Lordship, and that, in
common with that of Parasite, he exercised the ancient companion
profession. This the world said, and still smiled at the Hon. Peter;
for he was an engaging fellow, and where he went not Lord Mountfalcon
would not go.
They had a quiet little hotel dinner, ordered by Adrian, and made a
square at the table, Ripton Thompson being the fourth. Richard sent
down to his office to fetch him, and the two friends shook hands for
the first time since the great deed had been executed. Deep was the Old
Dog’s delight to hear the praises of his Beauty sounded by such
aristocratic lips as the Hon. Peter Brayder’s. All through the dinner
he was throwing out hints and small queries to get a fuller account of
her; and when the claret had circulated, he spoke a word or two
himself, and heard the Hon. Peter eulogize his taste, and wish him a
bride as beautiful; at which Ripton blushed, and said, he had no hope
of that, and the Hon. Peter assured him marriage did not break the
mould.
After the wine this gentleman took his cigar on the balcony, and found
occasion to get some conversation with Adrian alone.
“Our young friend here—made it all right with the governor?” he asked
carelessly.
“Oh yes!” said Adrian. But it struck him that Brayder might be of
assistance in showing Richard a little of the ‘society in every form’
required by his chief’s prescript. “That is,” he continued, “we are not
yet permitted an interview with the august author of our being, and I
have rather a difficult post. ’Tis mine both to keep him here, and also
to find him the opportunity to measure himself with his fellow-man. In
other words, his father wants him to see something of life before he
enters upon housekeeping. Now I am proud to confess that I’m hardly
equal to the task. The demi, or damnedmonde—if it’s that he wants him
to observe—is one that I have not got the walk to.”
“Ha! ha!” laughed Brayder. “You do the keeping, I offer to parade the
demi. I must say, though, it’s a queer notion of the old gentleman.”
“It’s the continuation of a philosophic plan,” said Adrian.
Brayder followed the curvings of the whiff of his cigar with his eyes,
and ejaculated, “Infernally philosophic!”
“Has Lord Mountfalcon left the island?” Adrian inquired.
“Mount? to tell the truth I don’t know where he is. Chasing some light
craft, I suppose. That’s poor Mount’s weakness. It’s his ruin, poor
fellow! He’s so confoundedly in earnest at the game.”
“He ought to know it by this time, if fame speaks true,” remarked
Adrian.
“He’s a baby about women, and always will be,” said Brayder. “He’s been
once or twice wanting to marry them. Now there’s a woman—you’ve heard
of Mrs. Mount? All the world knows her.—If that woman hadn’t
scandalized.”—The young man joined them, and checked the communication.
Brayder winked to Adrian, and pitifully indicated the presence of an
innocent.
“A married man, you know,” said Adrian.
“Yes, yes!—we won’t shock him,” Brayder observed. He appeared to study
the young man while they talked.
Next morning Richard was surprised by a visit from his aunt. Mrs. Doria
took a seat by his side and spoke as follows:
“My dear nephew. Now you know I have always loved you, and thought of
your welfare as if you had been my own child. More than that, I fear.
Well, now, you are thinking of returning to—to that place—are you not?
Yes. It is as I thought. Very well now, let me speak to you. You are in
a much more dangerous position than you imagine. I don’t deny your
father’s affection for you. It would be absurd to deny it. But you are
of an age now to appreciate his character. Whatever you may do he will
always give you money. That you are sure of; that you know. Very well.
But you are one to want more than money: you want his love. Richard, I
am convinced you will never be happy, whatever base pleasures you may
be led into, if he should withhold his love from you. Now, child, you
know you have grievously offended him. I wish not to animadvert on your
conduct.—You fancied yourself in love, and so on, and you were rash.
The less said of it the better now. But you must now—it is your duty
now to do something—to do everything that lies in your power to show
him you repent. No interruptions! Listen to me. You must consider him.
Austin is not like other men. Austin requires the most delicate
management. You must—whether you feel it or no—present an appearance of
contrition. I counsel it for the good of all. He is just like a woman,
and where his feelings are offended he wants utter subservience. He has
you in town, and he does not see you:—now you know that he and I are
not in communication: we have likewise our differences:—Well, he has
you in town, and he holds aloof:—he is trying you, my dear Richard. No:
he is not at Raynham: I do not know where he is. He is trying you,
child, and you must be patient. You must convince him that you do not
care utterly for your own gratification. If this person—I wish to speak
of her with respect, for your sake—well, if she loves you at all—if, I
say, she loves you one atom, she will repeat my solicitations for you
to stay and patiently wait here till he consents to see you. I tell you
candidly, it’s your only chance of ever getting him to receive her.
That you should know. And now, Richard, I may add that there is
something else you should know. You should know that it depends
entirely upon your conduct now, whether you are to see your father’s
heart for ever divided from you, and a new family at Raynham. You do
not understand? I will explain. Brothers and sisters are excellent
things for young people, but a new brood of them can hardly be
acceptable to a young man. In fact, they are, and must be, aliens. I
only tell you what I have heard on good authority. Don’t you understand
now? Foolish boy! if you do not humour him, he will marry her. Oh! I am
sure of it. I know it. And this you will drive him to. I do not warn
you on the score of your prospects, but of your feelings. I should
regard such a contingency, Richard, as a final division between you.
Think of the scandal! but alas, that is the least of the evils.”
It was Mrs. Doria’s object to produce an impression, and avoid an
argument. She therefore left him as soon as she had, as she supposed,
made her mark on the young man. Richard was very silent during the
speech, and save for an exclamation or so, had listened attentively. He
pondered on what his aunt said. He loved Lady Blandish, and yet he did
not wish to see her Lady Feverel. Mrs. Doria laid painful stress on the
scandal, and though he did not give his mind to this, he thought of it.
He thought of his mother. Where was she? But most his thoughts recurred
to his father, and something akin to jealousy slowly awakened his heart
to him. He had given him up, and had not latterly felt extremely
filial; but he could not bear the idea of a division in the love of
which he had ever been the idol and sole object. And such a man, too!
so good! so generous! If it was jealousy that roused the young man’s
heart to his father, the better part of love was also revived in it. He
thought of old days: of his father’s forbearance, his own wilfulness.
He looked on himself, and what he had done, with the eyes of such a
man. He determined to do all he could to regain his favour.
Mrs. Doria learnt from Adrian in the evening that her nephew intended
waiting in town another week.
“That will do,” smiled Mrs. Doria. “He will be more patient at the end
of a week.”
“Oh! does patience beget patience?” said Adrian. “I was not aware it
was a propagating virtue. I surrender him to you. I shan’t be able to
hold him in after one week more. I assure you, my dear aunt, he’s
already”...
“Thank you, no explanation,” Mrs. Doria begged.
When Richard saw her next, he was informed that she had received a most
satisfactory letter from Mrs. John Todhunter: quite a glowing account
of John’s behaviour: but on Richard’s desiring to know the words Clare
had written, Mrs. Doria objected to be explicit, and shot into worldly
gossip.
“Clare seldom glows,” said Richard.
“No, I mean for her,” his aunt remarked. “Don’t look like your father,
child.”
“I should like to have seen the letter,” said Richard.
Mrs. Doria did not propose to show it.