Some cousins came to dinner, also loud-voiced and bedizened with diamonds. The youngest cousin was at the age when Jewesses are handsomest, being barely seventeen.
She flirted outrageously with George, and he patronised her in a free and easy style. He could generally suit his manners to his company, and _this_ company was rather a rest and relaxation to him.
They all made a great deal of noise after dinner; it struck George that seven people in Hill Street were noisier than fourteen in Bryanston Square, and probably merrier. Mrs. Russelthorpe's hair would have stood on end if she could have seen that entertainment.
Mrs. Sauls enjoyed it as much as any one; but when the company had gone off hilariously, and George, having seen his guests out of the hall door, returned for a _tête-à-tête_ with her,--then she tasted the crowning felicity of the evening.
George always paid his mother the compliment of talking to her about his professional ambitions and interests. She was his only confidante, and he never forgot how she had encouraged him at the very outset of his career. He was not a man who forgot either injuries or benefits.
He talked a long time. Neither of them minded sitting up half the night; and the old lady liked the smell of his cigar, and enjoyed mixing his whisky and water for him, and rejoiced in the sound of his voice.
"Really!" he exclaimed at last, when two o'clock struck. "I am teaching you very bad ways, mother! I say, do you suppose that Miriam Moss will dream of forfeits to-night? She's a very precocious little girl! It's odd how early Jewesses develop. I've known other women of twenty or one and twenty not a quarter so 'formed' as she is."
His mother looked anxiously at him. "You are not thinking of marrying her, are you?" she asked. "You should do better than that, my son. The Mosses are rich, certainly; but I should like to see you go in for a title, myself; and you needn't be afraid that I'll stand in your way when you want to bring a wife home. Indeed, I'd like to have a grandson on my knee before I die, George; though I don't deny that it's been luck for me, in some respects, that you haven't married before. 'A son's a son till he gets him a wife.' Still, it's time now; and, if I were you, I'd look not lower than a county family. You've got money enough. And you may tell the lady from me," and her hard old face softened at the words, "you may tell her from me, that she'll be a lucky woman, for your vulgar old mother says so, and she has had reason enough to swear to it."