He stopped; he stared; he remained motionless and astounded.
At last he burst out, “Somer--Was it me you wished to see?”
“Yes,” said she, very kindly. “I came to see you for old acquaintance. You must call me Mrs. Marsh now; I am married.”
By this time he had quite recovered himself, and offered her a chair with ingratiating zeal.
“Sit down by me,” said she, as if she was petting a child. “Are you sure you remember me?”
Says the Courtier, “Who could forget you that had ever had the honor--”
Mrs. Marsh drew back with sudden hauteur. “I did not come here for folly,” said she. Then, rather naively, “I begin to doubt your being so very mad.”
“What, have I mistaken the house? Is it a jail?”
“Oh, no! I'll tell you. You see I was dipped pretty deep, and duns after me, and the Derby my only chance; so I put the pot on. But a dark horse won: the Jews knew I was done: so now it was a race which should take me. Sloman had seven writs out: I was in a corner. I got a friend that knows every move to sign me into this asylum. They thought it was all up then, and he is bringing them to a shilling in the pound.”
Before he could complete this autobiographical sketch Mrs. Marsh started up in a fury, and brought her whip down on the table with a smartish cut.
“You little heartless villain!” she screamed. “Is this, the way you play upon people: bringing me from my home to console a maniac, and, instead of that, you are only what you always were, a spendthrift and a scamp? Finely they will laugh at me.”
She clutched the whip in her white but powerful hand till it quivered in the air, impatient for a victim.
“Oh!” she cried, panting, and struggling with her passion, “if I wasn't a child of God, I'd--”
“You'd give me a devilish good hiding,” said Vandeleur, demurely.
“That I _would,”_ said she, very earnestly.
“You forget that I never told you I was mad. How could I imagine you would hear it? How could I dream you would come, even if you did?”
“I should be no Christian if I didn't come.”
“But I mean we parted bad friends, you know.”
“Yes, Van; but when I asked you for the gray horse you sent me a new sidesaddle. A woman does not forget those little things. You were a gentleman, though a child of Belial.”