Part 20 (1/2)

Quin carved the haunch, and was happy; Soaper and Snarl eating the same, and drinking Toquay, were mellowed and mitigated into human flesh. Mr.

Vane and Mrs. Woffington were happy; he, because his conscience was asleep; and she, because she felt nothing now could shake her hold of him. Sir Charles was in a sort of mental chuckle. His head burned, his bones ached; but he was in a sort of nervous delight.

”Where is she?” thought he. ”What will she do? Will she send her maid with a note? How blue he will look! Or will she come herself? She is a country wife; there must be a scene. Oh, why doesn't she come into this room? She must know we are here! is she watching somewhere?” His brain became puzzled, and his senses were sharpened to a point; he was all eye, ear and expectation; and this was why he was the only one to hear a very slight sound behind the door we have mentioned, and next to perceive a lady's glove lying close to that door. Mabel had dropped it in her retreat. Putting this and that together, he was led to hope and believe she was there, making her toilet, perhaps, and her arrival at present unknown.

”Do you expect no one else?” said he, with feigned carelessness, to Mr.

Vane.

”No,” said Mr. Vane, with real carelessness.

”It must be so! What fortune!” thought Pomander.

_Soaper._ ”Mr. Cibber looks no older than he did five years ago.”

_Snarl._ ”There was no room on his face for a fresh wrinkle.”

_Soaper._ ”He! he! Nay, Mr. Snarl: Mr. Cibber is like old port; the more ancient he grows, the more delicious his perfume.”

_Snarl._ ”And the crustier he gets.”

_Clive._ ”Mr. Vane, you should always separate those two. Snarl, by himself, is just supportable; but, when Soaper paves the way with his hypocritical praise, the pair are too much; they are a two-edged sword.”

_Woffington._ ”Wanting nothing but polish and point.”

_Vane._ ”Gentlemen, we abandon your neighbor, Mr. Quin, to you.”

_Quin._ ”They know better. If they don't keep a civil tongue in their heads, no fat goes from here to them.”

_Cibber._ ”Ah, Mr. Vane; this room is delightful; but it makes me sad. I knew this house in Lord Longueville's time; an unrivaled gallant, Peggy.

You may just remember him, Sir Charles?”

_Pomander_ (with his eye on a certain door). ”Yes, yes; a gouty old fellow.”

Cibber fired up. ”I wish you may ever be like him. Oh, the beauty, the wit, the _pet.i.ts-soupers_ that used to be here! Longueville was a great creature, Mr. Vane. I have known him entertain a fine lady in this room, while her rival was fretting and fuming on the other side of that door.”

”Ah, indeed!” said Sir Charles.

”More shame for him,” said Mr. Vane.

Here was luck! Pomander seized this opportunity of turning the conversation to his object. With a malicious twinkle in his eye, he inquired of Mr. Cibber what made him fancy the house had lost its virtue in Mr. Vane's hands.

”Because,” said Cibber, peevishly, ”you all want the true _savoir faire_ nowadays, because there is no _juste milieu,_ young gentlemen. The young dogs of the day are all either unprincipled heathen, like yourself, or Amadisses, like our worthy host.” The old gentleman's face and manners were like those of a patriarch, regretting the general decay of virtue, not the imaginary diminution of a single vice. He concluded with a sigh that, ”The true _preux des dames_ went out with the full periwig; stab my vitals!”

”A bit of fat, Mr. Cibber?” said Quin, whose jokes were not polished.

”Jemmy, thou art a brute,” was the reply.

”You refuse, sir?” said Quin, sternly.