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He plainly saw that Miss Hauton was not exactly a woman whom he could wish to make his wife and he was too honourable to trifle with her affections.
"If you think I should affront I would not really affront Hauton, who has always been so civil to me I'll go and be introduced and pay my compliments, since you say it is necessary; but I shall not stay five minutes." Buckhurst returned to be introduced to Miss Hauton.
The commissioner neglected not to push the claim which he had on Colonel Hauton, and he chose his time so well, when proper people were by, and when the colonel did not wish to have the squire, and the horse-whip, and the duel, brought before the public, that he obtained, if not a full acknowledgment of obligation, a promise of doing any thing and every thing in his power for his friend Buckhurst.
Lord Oldborough had been told, either by Cunningham, or by one of his sisters, that Godfrey made love to Miss Hauton, and that when he came to town ostensibly on some regimental business, and was pleading for a brother officer, his concealed motive was to break off the marriage of his lordship's niece.
"So then, sir, Miss Hauton, I think you tell me, is in love with Cornet Falconer?" "Captain Bellamy says so, my lord." "Sir, I care not what Captain Bellamy says nor do I well know who or what he is much less what he can have to do with my family affairs I ask, sir, what reason you have to believe that my niece is in love, as it is called, with your son?
Captain Bellamy came up to pay his respects, or rather his compliments, to Miss Hauton: there was no respect in his manner, but the confidence of one who had been accustomed to be well received. "She has not been well fainted last night at a ball is hipped this morning; but we'll get her spirits up again when we have her at Cheltenham We shall be a famous dashing party!
Godfrey, who had kept aloof, had in the mean time been looking at some books that lay on a reading table. Maria Hauton was written in the first page of several of them. All were novels some French, and some German, of a sort which he did not like. "What have you there, Mr. Percy?" said Miss Hauton. "Nothing worth your notice, I am afraid. I dare say you do not like novels."
"Where did you get this handsome dog?" The colonel then entered into the history of Pompey the Great. "I was speaking," said Miss Hauton, "to Mr. Godfrey Percy of his family relations of yours, Mr. Falconer, are not they? He has another sister, I think, some one told me, a beautiful sister, Caroline, who was not at the ball last night?"
Percy, leaning back in the carriage, said that he felt inclined to sleep. "To sleep!" repeated Godfrey: "is it possible that you can be sleepy, sir?" "Very possible, my dear son it is past four o'clock, I believe." Godfrey was silent for some minutes, and he began to think over every word and look that had passed between him and Miss Hauton.
"Pardon me, I like some novels very much." "Which?" said Miss Hauton, rising and approaching the table. "All that are just representations of life and manners, or of the human heart," said Godfrey, "provided they are " "Ah! the human heart!" interrupted Miss Hauton: "the heart only can understand the heart who, in modern times, can describe the human heart?"