'I don't know where the money's to come from. As for him, if he were starving, it would serve him right. He's a disgrace to the name and the family. From all I hear, he won't live long.'
'Oh, de Courcy, don't talk of it in that way!'
'What way am I to talk of it? If I say that he's my greatest comfort, and living as becomes a nobleman, and is a fine healthy man of his age, with a good wife and a lot of legitimate children, will that make you believe it? Women are such fools. Nothing that I say will make him worse than he is.'
'But he may reform.'
'Reform! He's over forty, and when I last saw him he looked nearly sixty. There;—you may answer his letter; I won't.'
'And about the money?'
'Why doesn't he write to Gazebee about his dirty money? Why does he trouble me? I haven't got his money. Ask Gazebee about his money. I won't trouble myself about it.' Then there was another pause, during which the countess folded the letter, and put it in her pocket.
'How long is George going to remain here with that woman?' he asked.
'I'm sure she is very harmless,' pleaded the countess.
'I always think when I see her that I'm sitting down to dinner with my own housemaid. I never saw such a woman. How he can put up with it! But I don't suppose he cares for anything.'
'It has made him very steady.'
'Steady!'
'And as she will be confined before long it may be as well that she should remain here. If Porlock doesn't marry, you know—'
'And so he means to live here altogether, does he? I'll tell you what it is,—I won't have it. He's better able to keep a house over his own head and his wife's than I am to do it for them, and so you may tell them. I won't have it. D'ye hear?' Then there was another short pause. 'D'ye hear?' he shouted at her.
'Yes; of course I hear. I was only thinking you wouldn't wish me to turn them out, just as her confinement is coming on.'
'I know what that means. Then they'd never go. I won't have it; and if you don't tell them I will.' In answer to this Lady de Courcy promised that she would tell them, thinking perhaps that the earl's mode of telling might not be beneficial in that particular epoch which was now coming in the life of Mrs George.
'Did you know,' said he, breaking out on a new subject, 'that a man had been here named Dale, calling on somebody in this house?' In answer to which the countess acknowledged that she had known it.
'Then why did you keep it from me?' And that gnashing of the teeth took place which was so specially objectionable to Mrs George.
'It was a matter of no moment. He came to see Lady Julia De Guest.'
'Yes; but he came about that man Crosbie.'
'I suppose he did.'
'Why have you let that girl be such a fool? You'll find he'll play her some knave's trick.'
'Oh dear, no.'
'And why should she want to marry such a man as that?'
'He's quite a gentleman, you know, and very much thought of in the world. It won't be at all bad for her, poor thing. It is so very hard for a girl to get married nowadays without money.'
'And so they're to take up with anybody. As far as I can see, this is a worse affair than that of Amelia.'
'Amelia has done very well, my dear.'
'Oh, if you call it doing well for your girls; I don't. I call it doing uncommon badly; about as bad as they well can do. But it's your affair. I have never meddled with them, and don't intend to do it now.'
'I really think she'll be happy, and she is devotedly attached to the young man.'
'Devotedly attached to the young man!' The tone and manner in which the earl repeated these words were such as to warrant an opinion that his lordship might have done very well on the stage had his attention been called to that profession. 'It makes me sick to hear people talk in that way. She wants to get married, and she's a fool for her pains;—I can't help that; only remember that I'll have no nonsense here about that other girl. If he gives me trouble of that sort, by ––––, I'll be the death of him. When is
