Part 18 (1/2)
HYP. Maud, why _will_ you be so headstrong! (_In a rapid whisper._) Can't you see ... can't you _guess_?...
MAUD. I guess I want to make sure Mr. Culchard isn't that kind of magnanimous man himself. I shouldn't want him to renounce _me_!
HYP. Maud! You might at _least_ wait until Mr. Culchard has----
MAUD. Oh, but he _did_--weeks ago, at Bingen. And at Lugano, too, the other day, he spoke out tolerable plain. I guess he didn't wish any secret made about it--_did_ you, Mr. Culchard?
CULCH. I--ah--this conversation is rather.... If you'll excuse me---- [_Escapes with as much dignity as he can command._
MAUD. Well, my dear,--that's the sort of self-denying hairpin _he_ is!
What do you think of him _now_?
HYP. I do not think so highly of him, I confess. His renunciation was evidently less prompted by consideration for his friend than by a recollection--tardy enough, I am afraid--of the duty which bound him to _you_, dearest. But if you had seen and heard him, as I did, you would not have doubted the _reality_ of the sacrifice, whatever the true reason may have been. For myself, I am conscious of neither anger nor sorrow--my heart, as I told you, was never really affected. But what must it be to _you_, darling!
MAUD. Well, I believe I'm more amused than anything.
HYP. Amused! But surely you don't mean to have anything more to do with him?
MAUD. My dear girl, I intend to have considerable more to do with him before I'm through. He's under vow for _me_ now, anyway, and I don't mean he should forget it, either. He's my monkey, and he's got to jump around pretty lively, at the end of a tolerable short chain, too. And I guess, if it comes to renouncing, all the magnanimity's going to be on _my_ side this time!
IN AN AVENUE.
CULCH. (_to himself, as he walks hurriedly on_). I only just saved myself in time. I don't _think_ Maud noticed anything--she couldn't have been so innocent and indifferent if she had.... And Hypatia won't enlighten her any further now--after what she knows. It's rather a relief that she _does_ know.... She took it very well, poor girl--_very_ well. I expect she is really beginning to put up with Podbury--I'm sure I _hope_ so, sincerely!
CHAPTER XVII.
Culchard cannot be ”Happy with Either.”
SCENE--_Under the Colonnade of the Hotel Grande Bretagne, Bellagio._ CULCHARD _is sitting by one of the pillars, engaged in constructing a sonnet. On a neighbouring seat a group of smart people are talking over their acquaintances, and near them is another visitor, a_ MR. CRAWLEY STRUTT, _who is watching his opportunity to strike into the conversation._
MRS. HURLINGHAM. Well, she'll _be_ Lady Chesepare some day, when anything happens to the old Earl. He was looking quite ghastly when we were down at Skympings last. But they're frightfully badly off _now_, poor dears! Lady Driblett lets them have her house in Park Lane for parties and that--but it's wonderful how they live at all!
COLONEL SANDOWN. He looked pretty fit at the Rag the other day. Come across the Senlacs anywhere? Thought Lady Senlac was going abroad this year.
MR. CRAWLEY STRUTT. Hem--I saw it mentioned in the _Penny Patrician_ that her Ladys.h.i.+p had----
MRS. HURL. (_without taking the slightest notice of him_). She's just been marryin' her daughter, you know--rather a good match, too. Not what I call pretty,--smart-lookin', that's all. But then her _sister_ wasn't pretty till she married.
COL. SAND. Nice family she married into! Met her father-in-law, old Lord Bletherham, the other morning, at a chemist's in Piccadilly--he'd dropped in there for a pick-me-up; and there he was, tellin' the chemist all the troubles he'd had with his other sons marryin' the way they did, and that. Rum man to go and confide in his chemist, but he's like that--fond of the vine!
MR. C. S. Er--her--it's becoming a very serious thing, Sir, the way our aristocracy is deteriorating, is it not?
[Ill.u.s.tration: ”I DON'T KNOW IF YOU'RE ACQUAINTED WITH A PAPER CALLED THE 'PENNY PATRICIAN'?”]
COL. S. Is it? What have they been up to now, eh? Haven't seen a paper for days.
MR. C. S. I mean these mixed marriages, and, well, their general goings on. I don't know if you're acquainted with a paper called the _Penny Patrician_? I take it in regularly, and I a.s.sure _you_--loyal supporter of our old hereditary inst.i.tutions as I am--some of the revelations I read about in high life make me blush--yes, downright _blush_ for them!