"And yet? Pray continue your criticism of the game, sir--I vow 'tis vastly diverting. And yet---- Well, sir?"
"And yet--well, surely with your many conquests, Mrs. Abington, you cannot set any store upon the devotion of Tom Linley!"
"Why should not I?" she cried. "Why should not I do so, if it so please me? He is, I repeat, a delightful boy, and why I should not value his devotion simply because I have had conquests and he has had none--that is your argument, I think--I cannot at this moment perceive."
"If you had any real affection for him you would not seek to spoil his career at the outset. The manager of the concerts told his father that Tom need never hope to get a hearing in Bath so long as he lives. You took him out driving with you when he should have been playing at the concert. Ah, my dear madam, one who is so strong as you are should be merciful."
"You come here to tell me that, do you? O Dick, you have, after all, no true sense of comedy, though I fancied that none could surpass you in that respect. Is't possible that you fail to see how ludicrous is your appearance here to-day pleading to me for--for--what? You have not yet told me what 'tis that you plead for."
"I plead with you to send Tom Linley back to the career which will surely be his if you set him free. Dear madam, you can have no idea in what anxiety his family are about him just now."
"They have been reading the parable of the one ewe lamb. They ask if Mrs. Abington has not at her feet flocks and herds which she devours at her leisure and when she has an appetite, and demand to know why she should want their one ewe lamb. They have not the wit to perceive that one may tire of beef and mutton, and so ask lamb by way of change. They are not good housekeepers. Besides, now that I come to think on't, they have more than one ewe lamb: are they not at the point of sacrificing one of them--the flower of the flock?"
"Leaving parables out of the question, dear madam, let me ask you if you do not think that it would be to the advantage of Tom Linley to remain under the influence of his home for some years, free from the distractions of the town? I have heard that he promises to become a very great musician; but if----"