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Updated: May 18, 2025
"No," thought our hero; "Heaven forefend I should be such a coxcomb as to fancy every woman who speaks to me has designs upon my precious heart, or on my more precious estate!" As he walked from his hotel to Lady Dashfort's house, ingeniously wrong, he came to this conclusion, just as he ascended the stairs, and just as her ladyship had settled her future plan of operations.
Petito had informed Lord Colambre, had come over with his regiment to Ireland, was beckoned into their box by Lady Dashfort, by her squeezed into a seat next to Lady Isabel; but Lady Isabel seemed to feel sovereign contempt, properly repressed by politeness, for what, in a low whisper to a female friend on the other side of her, she called, 'the self-sufficient inanity of this sad coxcomb. Other coxcombs, of a more vivacious style, who stationed themselves round her mother, or to whom her mother stretched from box to box to talk, seemed to engage no more of Lady Isabel's attention than just what she was compelled to give by Lady Dashfort's repeated calls of
One cordial look at this comforted her for the loss of her expected octogenaire; and she proceeded to discomfit her lady, by repeating the message with which strange old Mr. Reynolds had charged her. So ended all Lady Dashfort's hopes of his fortune.
"I have an excellent opinion of your taste; and if you can return the compliment to my judgment, take my advice: don't trust to your heart's being engaged, much less plead that engagement; for it would be Lady Dashfort's sport, and Lady Isabel's joy, to make you break your engagement, and break your mistress's heart; the fairer, the more amiable, the more beloved, the greater the triumph, the greater the delight in giving pain.
Lady Dashfort felt herself in this exalted situation, and fancied she might 'hear the innocuous thunder roll below. Her rank was so high that none could dare to call her vulgar; what would have been gross in any one of meaner note, in her was freedom, or originality, or Lady Dashfort's way. It was Lady Dashfort's pleasure and pride to show her power in perverting the public taste.
Now would Petito have given up her reversionary chance of the three nearly new gowns she expected from Lady Clonbrony, in case she stayed; or, in case she went, the reversionary chance of any dress of Lady Dashfort's except her scarlet velvet, merely to hear what Miss Broadhurst and Lord Colambre were saying.
One morning Lady Dashfort had formed an ingenious scheme for leaving Lady Isabel and Lord Colambre tete-a-tete; but the sudden entrance of Heathcock disconcerted her intentions. He came to beg Lady Dashfort's interest with Count O'Halloran, for permission to hunt and shoot on his grounds next season.
The undaunted assurance of Lady Dashfort's genius for intrigue gave her an air of frank imprudence, which prevented Lord Colambre from suspecting that more was meant than met the ear. The count and he took leave of one another with mutual regard; and Lady Dashfort rejoiced to have got our hero out of Halloran Castle.
In short, exceptionable as it was altogether, Lady Dashfort's conversation had become entertaining to him; and though he could never esteem or feel in the least interested about her, he began to allow that she could be agreeable. 'Ay, I knew how it would be, said she, when some of her friends told her this.
So I shall tell my lady to-night, as I always do when she vexes me, that I never lived in an Irish family before, and don't know the ways of it then she'll tell me she was born in Hoxfordshire then I shall say, with my saucy look, 'Oh, was you, my lady I always forget that you was an Englishwoman: then may be she'll say, 'Forget! you forget yourself strangely, Petito. Then I shall say, with a great deal of dignity, 'If your ladyship thinks so, my lady, I'd better go. And I'd desire no better than that she would take me at my word; for my Lady Dashfort's is a much better place, I'm told, and she's dying to have me, I know."
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