"Indeed!" he retorted. "But, pray, what do you know about Lord Lincoln?"
"I suppose you think I know no scandal?" she cried.
"I would prefer you to know as little as possible," he answered coolly; in the tone she fancied which he would have used had she been already his property. "And there is another thing I would also prefer you did not know," he continued.
"Pray, what is that?" she cried, openly scornful; and she flirted her fan a little faster.
"Mr. Hawkesworth."
The blood rushed to her cheeks. This was too much. "Are you jealous? or only impertinent?" she asked, her voice not less furious because it was low and guarded. "How noble, how chivalrous, to say behind a gentleman's back what you would not dare to say to his face!"
Sir Hervey shrugged his shoulders. "He is not a gentleman," he said. "He is not one of us, and he is not fit company for you. I do not know what story he has told you, nor what cards he has played, but I know that what I say is true. Be advised, child," he continued earnestly, "and look on him coldly when you see him next. Be sure if you do not-"
"You will speak to my sister?" she cried. "If you have not done it already? Lord, sir, I congratulate you. I'm sure you have discovered quite a new style of wooing. Next, I suppose, you will have me sent to my room, and put on bread and water for a week? Or buried in a parsonage in the country with Tillotson's Sermons and the 'Holy Living'?"
"I spoke to you as I should speak to my sister," Sir Hervey said, with something akin to apology in his tone.
"Say, rather, as you would speak to your daughter!" she replied, quick as lightning; and, trembling with rage, she drove home the shaft with a low curtsey. "To be sure, sir, now I think of it, the distance between us justifies you in giving me what advice you please."
He winced at last, and was even a trifle out of countenance. But he did not answer, and she, furiously angry, turned her back on him, and looked the other way. Young as she was, all the woman in her rose in revolt against the humiliation of being advised in such a matter by a man. She could have struck him. She hated him. And they were all in the same story. They were all against her and her dear Irishman, who alone understood her. Tears rose in Sophia's eyes as she pictured her present loneliness and her happiness in the past; as she recalled the old home looking down the long avenue of chestnut trees, the dogs, the horses, the boisterous twin brother, and the father who by turns had coarsely chidden and fondly indulged her. In her loss of all this, in a change of life as complete as it was sudden, she had found one only to comfort her, one only who had not thought the whirl of strange pleasures a sufficient compensation for a home and a father. One only who had read her silence, and pitied her inexperience. And him they would snatch from her! Him they would-
But at this point her thoughts were interrupted by a general movement towards the door. Bent on an evening's frolic the party issued into Arlington Street with loud laughter and louder voices, and in a moment were gaily descending St. James's Street. One or two of the elder ladies took chairs, but the greater part walked, the gentlemen with hats under their arms and canes dangling from their wrists, the more foppish with muffs. Passing down St. James's, where Betty, the fruit woman, with a couple of baskets of fruit, was added to the company, they crossed the end of Pall Mall, now inviting a recruit, after the easy fashion of the day, and now hailing a friend on the farther side of the street. Thence, by the Mall and the Horse Guards, and so to the Whitehall Stairs, where boats were waiting for them on the grey evening surface of the broad river.
Sophia found herself compelled to go in the same boat with Sir Hervey, but she took good heed to ensconce herself at a distance from him; and, successful in this, sat at her end, moody, and careless of appearances. There was singing and a little romping in the stern of the boat, where the ladies principally sat, and where their hoops called for some arrangement. Presently a pert girl, Lady Betty Cochrane, out at sixteen, and bent on a husband before she was seventeen, marked Sophia's silence, nudged those about her, and took on herself to rally the girl.
"La, miss, you must have been at a Quakers' meeting!" she cried, simpering. "It is easy to see where your thoughts are."
"Where?" Sophia murmured, abashed by this public notice.
"I believe there is very good acting in-Doblin!" the provoking creature answered, with her head on one side, and a sentimental air; and the ladies tittered and the gentlemen smiled. "Have you ever been to-Doblin, miss?" she continued, with a look that winged the innuendo.
Sophia, her face on fire, did not answer.
"Oh, la, miss, you are not offended, I hope!" the tormentor cried politely. "Sure, I thought the gentleman had spoken, and all was arranged. To be sure-
"O'Rourke's noble fare
Will ne'er be forgot
By those who were there,
And those who were not!
And those who were not!" she hummed again, with a wink that drove the ladies to hide their mirth in their handkerchiefs. "A fine man, O'Rourke, and I have heard that he was an actor in-Doblin!" the little tease continued.
Sophia, choking with rage, and no match for her town-bred antagonist, could find not a word to answer; and worse still, she knew not where to look. Another moment and she might even have burst into tears, a mishap which would have disgraced her for ever in that company. But at the critical instant a quiet voice at the stern was heard, quoting-
"Whom Simplicetta loves the town would know,
Mark well her knots, and name the happy beau!"
On which it was seen that it is one thing to tease and another to be teased. Lady Betty swung round in a rage, and without a word attacked Sir Hervey with her fan with a violence that came very near to upsetting the boat. "How dare you, you horrid man?" she cried, when she thought she had beaten him enough. "I wish there were no men in the world, I declare I do! It's a great story, you ugly thing! If Mr. Hesketh says I gave him a knot, he is just a-"
A shout of laughter cut her short. Too late she saw that she had betrayed herself, and she stamped furiously on the bottom of the boat. "He cut it off!" she shrieked, raising her voice above the laughter. "He cut it off! He would cut it off! 'Tis a shame you will not believe me. I say-"
A fresh peal of laughter drowned her voice, and brought the boat to the landing-place.
"All the same, Lady Betty," the nearest girl said as they prepared to step out, "you'd better not let your mother hear, or you'll go milk cows, my dear, in the country! Lord, you little fool, the boy's not worth a groat, and should be at school by rights!"
Miss Betty did not answer, but cocking her chin with disdain, which made her look prettier than ever, stepped out, sulking. Sophia followed, her cheeks a trifle cooler than they had been; and the party, once more united, proceeded on foot from the river to the much-praised groves of Pleasure; where ten thousand lamps twinkled and glanced among the trees, or outlined the narrowing avenue that led to the glittering pavilion. In the wide and open space before this Palace of Aladdin a hundred gay and lively groups were moving to and fro to the strains of the band, or were standing to gaze at the occupants of the boxes; who, sheltered from the elements, and divided from the humbler visitors by little gardens, supped al fresco, their ears charmed by music, and their eyes entertained by the ever-changing crowd that moved below them.
Two of the best boxes had been retained for Mrs. Northey's party, but before they proceeded to them her company chose to stroll up and down a time or two, diverting themselves with the humours of the place and the evening. More than once Sophia's heart stood still as they walked. She fancied that she saw Hawkesworth approaching, that she distinguished his form, his height, his face amid the crowd; and conscious of the observant eyes around her, as well as of her sister's displeasure, she knew not where to look for embarrassment. On each occasion it turned out that she was mistaken, and to delicious tremors succeeded the chill of a disappointment almost worse to bear. After all, she reflected, if she must dismiss him, here were a hundred opportunities of doing so in greater freedom than she could command elsewhere.