human
I tell you, my dear fellow, she's booked; and Mellot knows it as well as I. He saw her that night at Lady A's.
gpt
We saw the third act of the comi-tragedy. The fourth is playing out now. We shall see the fifth before the winter.
human
Non sine sanguine!
gpt
Serve the wretched stick right, at least, said Scoutbush.
human
What right had he to marry such a pretty woman?
gpt
What right had they to marry her up to him? said Claude.
human
I don't blame poor January. I suppose none of us, gentlemen, would have refused such a pretty toy, if we could have afforded it as he could.
gpt
Whom do you blame then?
human
Fathers and mothers who prate hypocritically about keeping their daughters' minds pure; and then abuse a girl's ignorance, in order to sell her to ruin. Let them keep her mind pure, in heaven's name; but let them consider themselves all the more bound in honour to use on her behalf the experience in which she must not share.
gpt
Well, drawled Scoutbush,
human
I don't complain of her bolting; she's a very sweet creature, and always was: but, as Longreach says,--and a very witty fellow he is, though you laugh at him,--'If she'd kept to us, I shouldn't have minded: but as Guardsmen, we must throw her over. It's an insult to the whole Guards, my dear fellow, after refusing two of us, to marry an attorney, and after all to bolt with a plunger.'
gpt
God help us all! And this is the girl I recollect, two years ago, singing there in Cavendish Square, as innocent as a nestling thrush!
human
Poor child! said Mellot,
gpt
She shan't do it, said the Major quietly:
human
I'll write to her to-night.
gpt
You think, then, sir, that you can, by simply writing, stop this intrigue?
human
I shouldn't wonder if he did, said Scoutbush;
gpt
She is at Lord ----'s now, at those silly private theatricals. Is he there?
human
No, said Mellot;
gpt
There is time then: I will write to her to-night;
human
Ah, said Scoutbush, taking his cigar meditatively from his mouth,
gpt
I wonder how he does it! It's a gift, I always say, a wonderful gift! Before he has been a week in a house, he'll have the confidence of every woman in it,--and 'gad, he does it by saying the rudest things!--and the confidence of all the youngsters the week after.
human
A somewhat dangerous gift,
gpt
Ah, yes; he might play tricks if he chose: but there's the wonder, that he don't. I'd answer for him with my own sister. I do every day of my life--for I believe he knows how many pins she puts into her dress--and yet there he is. As I said once in the mess-room--there was a youngster there who took on himself to be witty, and talked about the still sow supping the milk--the snob! You recollect him, Mellot? the attorney's son from Brompton, who sold out;--we shaved his mustachios, put a bear in his bed, and sent him home to his ma--And he said that Major Campbell might be very pious, and all that: but he'd warrant--they were the fellow's own words,--that he took his lark on the sly, like other men-- the snob! so I told him, I was no better than the rest, and no more I am; but if any man dared to say that the Major was not as honest as his own sister, I was his man at fifteen paces. And so I am, Claude!