‘Faith, we do!’ returned Eugene,
with great animation. ’We may hide behind
the bush and beat about it, but we do! Now,
my wife is something nearer to my heart, Mortimer,
than Tippins is, and I owe her a little more than
I owe to Tippins, and I am rather prouder of her than
I ever was of Tippins. Therefore, I will fight
it out to the last gasp, with her and for her, here,
in the open field. When I hide her, or strike
for her, faint-heartedly, in a hole or a corner, do
you whom I love next best upon earth, tell me what
I shall most righteously deserve to be told:—that
she would have done well to turn me over with her foot
that night when I lay bleeding to death, and spat
in my dastard face.’
The glow that shone upon him as he spoke the words,
so irradiated his features that he looked, for the
time, as though he had never been mutilated.
His friend responded as Eugene would have had him respond,
and they discoursed of the future until Lizzie came
back. After resuming her place at his side, and
tenderly touching his hands and his head, she said:
’Eugene, dear, you made me go out, but I ought
to have stayed with you. You are more flushed
than you have been for many days. What have you
been doing?’
‘Nothing,’ replied Eugene, ‘but
looking forward to your coming back.’
‘And talking to Mr Lightwood,’ said Lizzie,
turning to him with a smile. ‘But it cannot
have been Society that disturbed you.’
‘Faith, my dear love!’ retorted Eugene,
in his old airy manner, as he laughed and kissed her,
‘I rather think it was Society though!’
The word ran so much in Mortimer Lightwood’s
thoughts as he went home to the Temple that night,
that he resolved to take a look at Society, which
he had not seen for a considerable period.
Chapter 17
THE VOICE OF SOCIETY
Behoves Mortimer Lightwood, therefore, to answer a
dinner card from Mr and Mrs Veneering requesting the
honour, and to signify that Mr Mortimer Lightwood
will be happy to have the other honour. The Veneerings
have been, as usual, indefatigably dealing dinner
cards to Society, and whoever desires to take a hand
had best be quick about it, for it is written in the
Books of the Insolvent Fates that Veneering shall make
a resounding smash next week. Yes. Having
found out the clue to that great mystery how people
can contrive to live beyond their means, and having
over-jobbed his jobberies as legislator deputed to
the Universe by the pure electors of Pocket-Breaches,
it shall come to pass next week that Veneering will
accept the Chiltern Hundreds, that the legal gentleman
in Britannia’s confidence will again accept
the Pocket-Breaches Thousands, and that the Veneerings
will retire to Calais, there to live on Mrs Veneering’s
diamonds (in which Mr Veneering, as a good husband,
has from time to time invested considerable sums),
Copyrights
Our Mutual Friend from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.
