'Oh ah,--yes; of course. That is one way of looking at it. Well, Silverbridge. I'll tell you what I shall do; I shall hook it.'
'No; not you.'
'Yes, I shall. I daresay you won't believe me, but I've got such a feeling about me here'--as he said this he laid his hand upon his heart,--'that if I stayed I should go for hard drinking. I shall take the great Asiatic tour. I know a fellow that wants to go, but he hasn't got any money. I daresay I shall be off before the end of next month. You don't know any fellow that would buy a half-a-dozen hunters; do you?' Silverbridge shook his head. 'Good-bye,' said Dolly, in a melancholy tone. 'I am sure I am very much obliged to you for telling me. If I'd known you'd meant it, I shouldn't have meddled, of course. Duchess of Omnium!'
'Look here, Dolly, I have told you what I should have not have told anyone, but I wanted to screen the young lady's name.'
'It was so kind of you.'
'Do not repeat it. It is a kind of thing that ladies are particular about. They choose their own time of letting everybody know.' Then Dolly promised to be as mute as a fish, and took his departure.
Silverbridge had felt, towards the interview, that he had been arrogant to the unfortunate man,--particular in saying that the young lady would not remember the existence of such a suitor,--and had also recognised a certain honesty in the man's purpose, which had not been less honest because it was so absurd. Actuated by the consciousness of this, he had swallowed his anger, and had told the whole truth. Nevertheless things had been said which were horrible to him. This buffoon of a man had called his Isabel a-pert poppet! How was he to get over the remembrance of such an offence? And then the wretch had declared that he was--enamoured!
There was sacrilege in the term when applied by such a man to Isabel Boncassen. He had thought of days to come, when everything would be settled, when he might sit close to her, and call her pretty names,--when he might in sweet familiarity tell that she was a little Yankee and a fierce republican, and 'chaff' her about the stars and stripes; and then, as he pictured the scene to himself in his imagination, she would lean upon him and would give him back his chaff, and would call him an aristocrat and would laugh at his titles. As he thought of all this he would be proud with the feeling that such privileges would be his own. And now this wretched man had called her a pert poppet!
There was a sanctity about her,--a divinity which made it almost a profanity to have talked about her at all to such a one as Dolly Longstaff. She was his Holy of Holies, at which vulgar eyes should not even be allowed to gaze. It had been a most unfortunate interview. But this was clear, that, as he had announced his engagement to such a one as Dolly Longstaff, the matter now would admit of no delay. He would explain to his father that as tidings of the engagement had got abroad, honour to the young lady would compel him to come forward openly as her suitor at once. If this argument might serve him, then perhaps this intrusion would not have been altogether a misfortune.
