"Nothing--your fair friend must do for us both"--I have little doubt that the little marquis must and would have fallen a victim to exhaustion: but thus, having happily had a moment to recover himself, he proceeded,
"Nay, nay, nay," and laying his white hand, rings and all, on my shoulder, in much tribulation and hurry of speech and manner, "Nay--think of what you are saying--think how you may be injuring that lovely sweet being--that sweetest unsophisticated! lovely! sweet!"
"Oh, what a bed or sweets, yours must be!" interrupted I.
"I know well enough," continued Wellesley, pacing up and down the room with a feverish rapidity. "I know she went to Vauxhall with Beauclerc; but then she told me there was nothing in all this."
"Poor Beauclerc!" ejaculated I; "and what can his lordship do better than attend so sweet a creature? Come, come," I continued, "my lord! Mrs. Raffles is rich, and can do without you, kindly assisted as she is by the little parson!--Don't fret for her, nor for yourself; but, if you still love her, receive her from the hands of the good clergyman."
"Impossible!" Wellesley exclaimed. "I must reproach her with her faults, and then--she will throw the plates and dishes in my face!"
"It is not vulgarity in her," said Wellesley.
"Well then, since it is natural to break your head, which fact I do not in the least dispute, may it not be as natural to adorn it occasionally? and may it not be her nature to intrigue with Fred Beauclerc? Do not think about it my lord. Make yourself happy and comfortable, and----"
Wellesley took up his hat and ran downstairs. I followed him, laughing loudly till he got into his carriage.
Beauclerc was in due time tired of his _bonne fortune_, and this gave Wellesley the delicious opportunity of pressing his charmer to his faithful and doting heart with renovated rapture.
About this time, or else some other time, a Mr. Something-doff was presented to me, hot from Russia. I forgot the beginning of his name. I recollect that he brought, at the ends of his fingers, a very odd waltz, which seemed to have been composed on purpose to warm them. I asked him, since he was on the Emperor's staff, if he had met with the General Beckendorff.
"Oh, yes!" answered he, laughing, "Beckendorff is my particular friend. He wanted to come to England with me; but he assured me he had made such a fool of himself about a woman here, Amy, I think, he called her, that he was ashamed to show his face within a thousand miles of herself or her friends."