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'She has taken it, said the old man who was standing at the door. Alexandra Pavlovna turned to him. 'Is there no one with her but you? she inquired. 'There is the girl her granddaughter, but she always keeps away. She won't sit with her; she's such a gad-about. To give the old woman a drink of water is too much trouble for her. And I am old; what use can I be?
The landlady of the Aurora tavern was visited by none of these, and with that beautiful trust which habit gives, and which boastful love or vainer earthly qualities would fail in effecting, she ordered that the pint of Madeira should stand from six o'clock in the evening till seven a small monument of confidence in him who was at one instant the 'poor old dear'; at another, the 'naughty old gad-about'; further, the 'faithless old-good-for-nothing'; and again, the 'blessed pet' of the landlady's parlour, alternately and indiscriminately apostrophized by herself, her sister, and daughter.
The impudent hussy was livid with rage, you see, perhaps because she could not trap her Rafael again; for he, weary of such uncleanliness, had abandoned her forever. Ah, the lost soul, the indecent gad-about! Excuse me!
"I suppose you know what my life is," she presently said. "I have no pleasure, I see nothing, I do nothing. I live in Paris as I might live at Poitiers. My mother-in-law calls me what is the pretty word? a gad-about? accuses me of going to unheard-of places, and thinks it ought to be joy enough for me to sit at home and count over my ancestors on my fingers.
The waterways form the only regular channels for social and commercial intercourse, and the busybody and gad-about are not regarded with favor by honest people.
He did not see much of Little Marion, who was a great gad-about, and who, when she was at home, was monopolized by Jimmy Day. Mrs. Falkner he found immensely companionable. She had a half-caustic wit which he enjoyed, but he liked best to have her argue with Charleton on what she called his dog-eat-dog theory of life.
She was learning some of the old-fashioned songs that he had loved in his youth, though I think sometimes he leaned his head against the high back of his chair and went sound asleep. Everybody was always wanting her; and her mother said she was a sad little gad-about. Even John's wife insisted upon a share of her.
"You wish to write my life?" he said. "Know then that Godric's life is such as this: Godric, at first a gross rustic, an unclean liver, an usurer, a cheat, a perjurer, a flatterer, a wanderer, pilfering and greedy; now a dead flea, a decayed dog, a vile worm, not a hermit, but a hypocrite; not a solitary, but a gad-about in mind; a devourer of alms, dainty over good things, greedy and negligent, lazy and snoring, ambitious and prodigal, one who is not worthy to serve others, and yet every day beats and scolds those who serve him: this, and worse than this, you may write of Godric."
Binnie woke up briskly when the Colonel entered. "It is you, you gad-about, is it?" cried the civilian. "How has the beau monde of London treated the Indian Adonis? Have you made a sensation, Newcome? Gad, Tom, I remember you a buck of bucks when that coat first came out to Calcutta just a Barrackpore Brummell in Lord Minto's reign, was it, or when Lord Hastings was satrap over us?"
Before it could find a fresh place to get out at, the whole upper part of the garden was one network of lakes and islands. Willie kept walking round and round it, as if it had been a wild beast trying to get out of its cage, and he had to watch and prevent it at every weak spot; or as if he were a magician, busily sustaining the charm by which he confined the gad-about creature.
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