“Would Mr. Darcy then consider the rashness of your original intention as atoned for by your obstinacy in adhering to it?”
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“How delighted Miss Darcy will be to receive such a letter!”
“A blush is very becoming, Duchess,” remarked Lord Henry.
“And I wish my collection were larger for your benefit and my own credit; but I am an idle fellow; and though I have not many, I have more than I ever looked into.”
“We will go as far as Meryton with you,” said Catherine and Lydia. Elizabeth accepted their company, and the three young ladies set off together.
“It would not be easy, indeed, to catch their expression; but their colour and shape, and the eyelashes, so remarkably fine, might be copied.”
The Stryver clerk, who never assisted at these conferences, had gone home, and the Stryver principal opened the door. He had his slippers on, and a loose bed-gown, and his throat was bare for his greater ease. He had that rather wild, strained, seared marking about the eyes, which may be observed in all free livers of his class, from the portrait of Jeffries downward, and which can be traced, under various disguises of Art, through the portraits of every Drinking Age.
[Illustration:
Elizabeth took up some needlework, and was sufficiently amused in attending to what passed between Darcy and his companion. The perpetual commendations of the lady either on his hand-writing, or on the evenness of his lines, or on the length of his letter, with the perfect unconcern with which her praises were received, formed a curious dialogue, and was exactly in unison with her opinion of each.
“Yes; and they have another, who lives somewhere near Cheapside.”
“You would not say so if you saw her, Harry.”
“Is Miss Darcy much grown since the spring?” said Miss Bingley: “will she be as tall as I am?”
“You thought it was my husband. It is only his wife. You must let me introduce myself. I know you quite well by your photographs. I think my husband has got seventeen of them.”
“Have you anything else to propose for my domestic felicity?”
Lord Henry laughed and rose. “I am going to the park,” he cried.
She spoke; Minerva burns to meet the war: And now heaven’s empress calls her blazing car. At her command rush forth the steeds divine; Rich with immortal gold their trappings shine. Bright Hebe waits; by Hebe, ever young, The whirling wheels are to the chariot hung. On the bright axle turns the bidden wheel Of sounding brass; the polished axle steel. Eight brazen spokes in radiant order flame; The circles gold, of uncorrupted frame, Such as the heavens produce: and round the gold Two brazen rings of work divine were roll’d. The bossy naves of sold silver shone; Braces of gold suspend the moving throne: The car, behind, an arching figure bore; The bending concave form’d an arch before. Silver the beam, the extended yoke was gold, And golden reins the immortal coursers hold. Herself, impatient, to the ready car, The coursers joins, and breathes revenge and war.
She then ran gaily off, rejoicing, as she rambled about, in the hope of being at home again in a day or two. Jane was already so much recovered as to intend leaving her room for a couple of hours that evening.
“My son, don’t say such dreadful things,” murmured Mrs. Vane, taking up a tawdry theatrical dress, with a sigh, and beginning to patch it. She felt a little disappointed that he had not joined the group. It would have increased the theatrical picturesqueness of the situation.
At last we rose and dressed; and Queequeg, taking a prodigiously hearty breakfast of chowders of all sorts, so that the landlady should not make much profit by reason of his Ramadan, we sallied out to board the Pequod, sauntering along, and picking our teeth with halibut bones.
“That would be impossible, my dear boy.”