“Then why do you stop a fellow short like that?” said General Travers; “I was going to tell you of someone I saw the other day in the house of your—your friend, you know. She was under Miss Marjoribanks’s wing, that was how I saw her—and I hope you are not playing the gay deceiver, my friend;—a little thing, round-faced, hazel-eyed—a little soft rosebud sort of creature,” said the General, growing eloquent. “By Jove! Cavendish, I hope you don’t mean to make yourself disagreeable. These sort of looks, you know—”
“It was Rose, I suppose,” said Mr. Cavendish, relieved in a moment; and, to tell the truth, he could not help laughing. The more eloquent and angry the General grew, the more amused and contemptuous grew his entertainer. He was so tickled by the position of affairs, that he actually forgot his anxieties for the moment. “No doubt it was Rose,” he repeated, and laughed; Rose! what anybody could see in that little dragon! And then the contrast between the soldier, who prided himself on his knowledge of the world, and liked to talk of his family and position, to the annoyance of those who had none, and the amusement of those who happen to possess these valuable qualifications—and the mistress of the Female School of Design, filled Mr. Cavendish with amusement: perhaps all the more because he himself was in a similar scrape. As for General Travers, he was as much disposed to be angry as, a moment before, Mr. Cavendish had been.
“It might be Rose,” he said, “or Lily either, for anything I can tell; but there is nothing laughable in it that I can see. You seem to be perfectly au courant, at all events—which I hope is quite satisfactory to Miss Marjoribanks,” said the soldier; and then he resumed, after a disagreeable little pause, “they tell me that everybody meets at the Doctor’s on Thursdays. I suppose I shall see you there. Thursday, ain’t it? tomorrow?” He looked as he spoke, with what seemed to his victim an insulting consciousness, in poor Cavendish’s face. But, in reality, the General did not mean to be insulting, and knew nothing whatever of the horrible internal pang which rent his companion when it was thus recalled to him that it was tomorrow—a fact which, up to this moment, had not occurred to the unfortunate. Tomorrow; and not even tomorrow—today—for by this time it was two o’clock in the morning, and the unwelcome intruder was wasting the little time he had for deciding what he should do. Once more his own personal anxieties, which he had put aside for a moment at the sudden dictate of jealousy, surged over everything, and swallowed up all lesser sensations. Tomorrow!—and by this time everybody knew that he was in Carlingford, and he could not stay away from the weekly assembly without attracting general attention to himself, and throwing open the floodgates of suspicion. What was he to do? should he turn his back on the enemy once for all, and run away and break off his connection with Carlingford? or should he dare everything and face the Archdeacon, and put his trust in Lucilla, as that high-minded young woman had invited him to do? With these thoughts in his mind, it may be supposed that Mr. Cavendish gave but a very mingled attention to the babble of his visitor, who found the wine and the cigars so good, and perhaps had begun to be a little moved out of his ordinary lucidity by their effect.
“You’ve got a nice little house, Cavendish,” said the General, “but it’s too small for a married man, my boy. These women are the very deuce for turning a man out of his comfortable quarters. You’ll have to go in for boudoirs and those sort of things; and, by George! you’ll be an ass if you do, with a snug little box like this to retire into,” said the philosophical warrior; and poor Cavendish smiled a ghastly smile, with the strongest inclination all the time to take him by the collar and turn him out of doors. But then he was a warrior and a general officer, and a member of the same club, and six feet high—all which particulars, not to speak of the sacred rights of hospitality, made it somewhat difficult to carry this idea out.
“Don’t you think Centum will be sitting up for you?” he said mildly; “it’s past two o’clock; and it’s Thursday morning,” the victim added, with a sigh. The last words were an involuntary utterance of his own despair, but fortunately they struck General Travers’s vein of humour, which happened to be lively at the moment, and worked the desired but unexpected result. The General laughed loud and long, and declared that he respected a man who was aboveboard, and meant to look respectable for Miss Marjoribanks’s sake; and then he poured a mighty libation to Lucilla, and took an affectionate leave of her supposed lover. The General made a great commotion in the decorous quiet of Grange Lane when he knocked at Mr. Centum’s door. Though it was nearly three o’clock in the morning, nothing but his inherent dread of a woman would have prevented him from knocking up the banker to share his hilarity; but Mrs. Centum, in her nightcap, peaceably asleep as she was at the moment, daunted the soul of the gallant soldier; and naturally his recollection was not very perfect next day. “I had something very funny to tell you; but, by Jove! I forget what it was!” General Travers said next morning when he met his host at breakfast; and thus one bad joke at least was spared. But Mr. Cavendish shut his door upon his departing guest, without any
