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These "mutual admiration" families, as Wilkie Collins so aptly terms them, are families to be shunned. You do not very often come across men on these "at home" days. If they are in the house, they wisely avoid the drawing-room; and if you ever do meet one, he is sure to be a very milk-and-water young man one who delights in small talk and small matters; or else a curate.
Wilkie was in excellent spirits, as was also the dowager, her mother-in-law, and after the dejeuner they wept together and kissed each other at parting as if they were blood relations. Mrs. Collins was not so much affected; she was so much entranced at the rich prize she had secured for her daughter that grief was altogether out of the question.
Alas! the unfortunate woman had failed in playing a part which was too difficult for a mother's heart. "You have suffered cruelly, my son," she continued; "but I I Ah! you can't conceive the frightful agony it costs a mother to separate from her child! But you were not deserted, Wilkie; don't say that. Have you not felt my love in the air around you? YOU forgotten?
M. Wilkie remained silent for a moment, as if he were deliberating upon the course he ought to pursue. "If my father is reasonable, I will be the same," he said at last. "I will choose as an arbiter between us one of my friends a man who acts on the square, like myself the Marquis de Valorsay." "My God! do you know him?" "He is one of my most intimate friends."
Mike said he supposed so. 'That'll be extra, she said. 'And dinner? A chop, or a nice steak? Mike bowed before this original flight of fancy. A chop or a nice steak seemed to be about what he might want. 'That'll be extra, said the pantomime dame in her best Wilkie Bard manner. Mike said yes, he supposed so.
Started without a dollar."... "Yellow flounces on the overskirt "... "I says, 'Wilkie, your department's got to go bigger this year, I says."... "Fifteen per cent. turnover in thirty-one weeks."... "One of the biggest men in the biggest "... "The wife says she'll have to let out my pants if my appetite "... "Say, did you see that statue of a Turk in the hall?
Wilkie sighed deeply as she showed her son the many improvements which had been made in the old house, and thought that her reign was at an end and that a new Caesar had taken the reins of government.
So he followed him to the theatre, and thence to Brebant's, where he was sitting feeling terribly bored, when M. Wilkie conceived the unfortunate idea of inviting Victor Chupin to come up and take some refreshment. The scene which followed greatly alarmed the viscount. Who could this young man be?
Thereupon, as she offered no resistance, he half led, half carried her to an arm-chair, into which she sank heavily. "Now she is going to faint!" thought Wilkie, in despair. What should he do? Call for help? He dared not. However, necessity inspired him. He knelt at Madame d'Argeles's feet, and gently said: "Come, come, be reasonable! Why do you give way like this? I don't reproach you!"
During the holidays M. Patterson kept the boy with him, refusing him nothing in the way of pleasure, granting all his wishes, but never losing sight of him for a moment. And if Wilkie complained of this constant watchfulness, M. Patterson always replied, "I must obey orders;" and this answer invariably put an end to the discussion.
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