Epsom the next morning;
blackguarding each other in parliamentary language--which, on my honor,
will soon want duels revived to keep it within decent breeding, if Lord
Robert Cecil and others don't learn better manners, and remember the
golden rule that "He alone resorts to vituperation whose argument is
illogical and weak." We, luckier dogs, who weren't slaves to St.
Stephen's, nor to anything at all except as parsons and moralists, with
whom the grapes sont verts et bons pour des goujats, said to our own
worldly vitiated tastes and evil leanings, spent our hours in the Ring
and the coulisses, White's and the United, crush balls and opera
suppers, and swore we were immeasurably bored, though we wouldn't have
led any other life for half a million. The season whirled along.
Earlscourt devoted himself more entirely than ever to public life; he
filled one of the most onerous and important posts in the ministry, and
appeared to occupy himself solely with home politics and foreign
politics. Lady Mechlin, only a baronet's widow, though she had very
tolerable society of her own, was not in _his_ monde; and Beatrice
Boville and he, with only Hyde Park Corner between them, might as well,
for any chance of rapprochement, have been severally at Spitzbergen and
Cape Horn. Two or three times they passed each other in Pall-Mall and
the Ride; but Earlscourt only lifted his hat to Lady Mechlin, and
Beatrice set her little teeth together, and wouldn't have solicited a
glance from him to save her life. Earlscourt was excessively distant to
me after seeing my tilbury at her door; no doubt he thought it strange
for me to have continued my intimacy with a woman who had wronged him so
bitterly. He said nothing, but I could see he was exceedingly
displeased; and the more I tried to smooth it with him, the more
completely I seemed to set my foot in it. It was exceedingly difficult
to touch on any obnoxious subject with him; he was never harsh or
discourteous, but he could freeze the atmosphere about him gently, but
so completely, that no mortal could pierce through it; and, fettered by
my promise to her and his prohibition to me, I hardly knew how to bring
up her name. As the Fates would have it, I often met Beatrice myself, at
the Regent Park fetes, at concerts, at a Handel Festival at Sydenham, at
one or two dinner parties; and, as she generally made way for me beside
her, and was one of those women who are invariably, though without
effort,