“Oh, please don’t talk for ever about Arthur; I ain’t in love with Arthur, though Nancy is. I think you might find another subject,” she said. “They make a deal too much of him at home; I think, and so does Matilda, that there are nicer-looking and as gentlemanlike-looking in Underhayes as he is. What do you think of Underhayes, Mr. Durant? Is not it a pretty little place? If I had my choice I would live in London, and every night of my life I’d go to a dance or to the play. I don’t pretend to be good, as some girls are. I shouldn’t go about among the poor, or sing in church. What I’d like, would be to go to a party every night, or else to the play.”
“I should think you would soon be tired of that,” said Durant; “fashionable people get quite worn out. They get pale and colourless, not fresh and blooming, like you.”
“Oh,” cried Sarah Jane, feeling that this was the kind of talk in which she shone, “tell me about fashionable people, Mr. Durant! Are they a great deal prettier than we are? I suppose they look so with all their grand dresses; but I should not care to catch people by dress, and make them think me good-looking when I wasn’t; I would much rather look what I am, and then nobody would be deceived.”
“You could have no inducement to look anything but what you are,” said Durant amused, giving this young savage, since she asked for it so plainly, the gewgaw of compliment which she wanted. Sarah Jane brightened, and coloured, and bridled with pleasure. Let Nancy fare as she might, here was an immediate advantage her sister could have, without any evil effect on Nancy’s future.
“Oh, you are just like all the gentlemen,” she said, “always paying compliments; if the girls were not a deal more sensible than you think, you would turn our heads. But if there is one thing I despise, it is the silly girls that believe everything that is said to them. A little experience teaches you better than that,” said Sarah Jane.
“And what does experience teach Miss Bates,” said Durant, suppressing his laugh.
“I told you before I was not Miss Bates; I am Miss Sarah Jane. Some people don’t think it very pretty, but I will never be ashamed of my name. Is it true that they go to five or six parties in a night, one after the other? I should not like that; where I am enjoying myself I like to stay. If it was dull, perhaps it would be a good thing to try another, but fancy a ball being dull! it is, I suppose, for the old wallflowers that don’t dance, but I think a ball heavenly. Don’t you think so, Mr. Durant? I have been at three--the volunteers’ ball, and the--two others that you wouldn’t know about; and I nearly danced my shoes to pieces at all the three.”