Love Me Little, Love Me Long Part 56

"Ta! ta! ta! you are a sailor, green as sea-weed."

"Mr. Bazalgette, as I am a gentleman, she never has encouraged me to love her as I do."

"Your statement, sir, is one which becomes a gentleman--under the circ.u.mstances. But I happen to have watched her. It is a thing I have taken the trouble to do for some time past. It was my interest in you that made me curious, and apprehensive--on your account."

"Then, if you have watched her, you must have seen her avoid me."

"Pooh! pooh! that was drawing the bait; these old stagers can all do that."

"Old stagers!" and David looked as if blasphemy had been uttered.

Bazalgette wore a grin of infinite irony.

"Don't be shocked," said he; "of course, I mean old in flirtation; no lady is old in years."

"_She_ is not, at all events."

"It is agreed. There are legal fictions, and why not social ones?"

"I don't understand you, sir; and, in truth, it is all a puzzle to me.

You don't seem angry with me?"

"Why, of course not, my poor fellow; I pity you."

"Yet you discourage me, Mr. Bazalgette."

"But not from any selfish motive. I want to spare you the mortification that is in store for you. Remember, I have seen the _end_ of about a dozen of you."

"Good Heavens! And what is the end of us?"

"The cold shoulder without a day's warning, and another fool set in your place, and the house door slammed in your face, etc., etc. Oh, with her there is but one step from flirtation to detestation. Not one of her flames is her friend at this moment."

David hung his head, and his heart turned sick; there was a silence of some seconds, during which Bazalgette eyed him keenly. "Sir," said David, at last, "your words go through me like a knife."

"Never mind. It is a friendly surgeon's knife, not an a.s.sa.s.sin's."

"Yet you say it is only out of regard for me you warn me so against her."

"I repeat it."

"Then, sir, if, by Heaven's mercy, you should be mistaken in her character--if, little as I deserve it, I should succeed in winning her regard--I might reckon on your permission--on your kind--support?"

"Hardly," said Mr. Bazalgette, hastily. He then stared at the honest earnest face that was turned toward him. "Well," said he, "you modest gentlemen have a marvelous fund of a.s.surance at bottom. No, sir; with the exception of this piece of friendly advice I shall be strictly neutral. In return for it, if you should succeed, be so good as to take her out of the house, that is the only stipulation I venture to propose."

"I should be sure to do that," cried David, lifting his eyes to Heaven with rapture; "but I shall not have the chance."

"So I keep telling you. You might as well hope to tempt a statue of the G.o.ddess Flirtation. She infinitely prefers wealth and vanity to anything, even to vice."

"Vice, sir! is that a term for us to apply to a lady like her, whom we are all unworthy to approach?" and David turned very red.

"Well, _you_ need not quarrel with _me_ about her, as _I_ don't with _you."_

"Quarrel with you, dear sir? I hope I feel your kindness, and know my duty better; but, sir, I am agitated, and my heart is troubled; and surely you go beyond reason. She is not old enough to have had so many lovers."

"Humph! she has made good use of her time."

"Even could I believe that she, who seems to me an angel, is a coquette, still she cannot be hard and heartless as you describe her.

It is impossible; it does not belong to her years."

"You keep harping on her age, Dodd. Do you know her age? If you do, you have the advantage of me. I have not seen her baptismal register.

Have you?"

"No, sir, but I know what she says is her age."

"That is only evidence of what is not her age."

"But there is her face, sir; that is evidence."

"You have never seen her face; it is always got up to deceive the public."

"I have seen it at the dawn, before any of you were up."

"What is that? Halo! the deuce--where?"

"In the garden."

"In the garden? Oh, she does not jump off her down-bed on to a flowerbed. She had been an hour at work on that face before ever the sun or you got leave to look on it."

"I'll stake my head I tell her age within a year, Mr. Bazalgette."

"No you will not, nor within ten years."

"That is soon seen. I call her one-and-twenty."

"One-and-twenty! You are mad! Why, she has had a child that would be fifteen now if it had lived."

"Miss Lucy? A child? Fifteen years? What on earth do you mean?"

"What do _you_ mean? What has Miss Lucy to do with it? You know very well it is MY WIFE I am warning you against, not that innocent girl."

At this David burst out in his turn. "YOUR WIFE! and have you so vile an opinion of me as to think I would eat your bread and tempt your wife under your roof. Oh, Mr. Bazalgette, is this the esteem you profess for me?"

"Go to the Devil!" shouted Bazalgette, in double ire at his own blunder and at being taken to task by his own Telemachus; he added, but in a very different tone, "You are too good for this world."

The best things we say miss fire in conversation; only second-rate shots. .h.i.t the mind through the ear. This, we will suppose, is why David derived no amus.e.m.e.nt or delectation from Mr. Bazalgette's inadvertent but admirable _bon-mot._

"Go to the Devil! you are too good for this world."

He merely rose, and said gravely, "Heaven forgive you your unjust suspicions, and G.o.d bless you for your other kindness. Good-by!"