“You must confide your annoyance to me. I am your oldest acquaintance,” said Mr Agar. “What has happened? Has your pretty sister been naughty--eh? or are all the people _so_ much delighted with your book?”
“Yes,” said Agnes, holding down her head a little, with a momentary shame that her two troubles should have been so easily found out.
“And why should they not be delighted?” said the ancient beau. “You would have liked me a great deal better had I been the same, when I first saw you; do you not like it now?”
“Yes; no. Your eyes do not talk in monosyllables,” said the old gentleman, “eh? What has poor Sir Langham done to merit that flash of dissatisfaction? and I wonder what is the meaning of all these anxious glances towards the door?”
“I was looking for--for the young lady they call Rachel,” said Agnes. “Do you know who she is, sir?--can you tell me? I am afraid she thought we were rude this morning, when we met her; and I wish very much to see her to-night.”
“Ah! I know nothing of the young lady, but a good deal of the voice,” said Mr Agar; “a fine soprano,--a good deal of expression, and plenty of fire. Yes, she needs nothing but cultivation to make a great success.”
“I think, sir,” said Agnes, suddenly breaking in upon this speech, “if you would speak to Mrs Edgerley for her, perhaps they would not teaze her about being a singer. She hates it. I know she does; and it would be very good of you to help her, for she has no friends.”
Mr Agar looked at the young pleader with a smile of surprised amusement. “And why should I interfere on her behalf? and why should she not be a singer? and how do you suppose I could persuade myself to do such an injury to Art?”
“She dislikes it very much,” said Agnes. “She is a woman--a girl--a delicate mind; it would be very cruel to bring her before the world; and indeed I am sure if you would speak to Mrs Edgerley--”
“My dear young lady,” cried Mr Agar, with a momentary shrug of his eyebrows, and look of comic distress, “you entirely mistake my _rôle_. I am not a knight-errant for the rescue of distressed princesses. I am a humble servant of the beautiful; and a young lady’s tremors are really not cause enough to induce me to resign a fine soprano. No. I bow before my fair enslavers,” said the ancient Corydon, with a reverential obeisance, which belonged, like his words, to another century; “but my true and only mistress is Art.”