"I hope you found the noble earl well," said Mrs Roper to him, as soon as they were all seated at dinner.
"I found the noble earl pretty well, thank you," said Johnny.
It had become plainly understood by all the Roperites that Eames's position was quite altered since he had been honoured with the friendship of Lord De Guest. Mrs Lupex, next to whom he always sat at dinner, with a view to protecting her as it were from the dangerous neighbourhood of Cradell, treated him with a marked courtesy. Miss Spruce always called him "sir." Mrs Roper helped him the first of the gentlemen, and was mindful about his fat and gravy, and Amelia felt less able than she was before to insist upon the possession of his heart and affections. It must not be supposed that Amelia intended to abandon the fight, and allow the enemy to walk off with his forces; but she felt herself constrained to treat him with a deference that was hardly compatible with the perfect equality which should attend any union of hearts.
"It is such a privilege to be on visiting terms with the nobility," said Mrs Lupex. "When I was a girl, I used to be very intimate—"
"You ain't a girl any longer, and so you'd better not talk about it," said Lupex. Mr Lupex had been at that little shop in Drury Lane after he came down from his scene-painting. "My dear, you needn't be a brute to me before all Mrs Roper's company. If, led away by feelings which I will not now describe, I left my proper circles in marrying you, you need not before all the world teach me how much I have to regret." And Mrs Lupex, putting down her knife and fork, applied her handkerchief to her eyes.
"That's pleasant for a man over his meal, isn't it?" said Lupex, appealing to Miss Spruce. "I have plenty of that kind of thing, and you can't think how I like it."
"Them whom God has joined together, let no man put asunder," said Miss Spruce. "As for me myself, I'm only an old woman."
This little ebullition threw a gloom over the dinner-table, and nothing more was said on the occasion as to the glories of Eames's career. But, in the course of the evening, Amelia heard of the encounter which had taken place at the railway station, and at once perceived that she might use the occasion for her own purposes.
"John," she whispered to her victim, finding an opportunity for coming upon him when almost alone, "what is this I hear? I insist upon knowing. Are you going to fight a duel?"
"Nonsense," said Johnny.
"But it is not nonsense. You don't know what my feelings will be, if I think that such a thing is going to happen. But then you are so hard-hearted!"
"I ain't hard-hearted a bit, and I'm not going to fight a duel."
"But is it true that you beat Mr Crosbie at the station?"
"It is true. I did beat him."
"Oh, John! not that I mean to say you were wrong, and indeed I honour you for the feeling. There can be nothing so dreadful as a young man's deceiving a young woman; and leaving her after he has won her heart—particularly when she has had promise in plain words, or, perhaps, even in black and white." John thought of that horrid, foolish, wretched note which he had written. "And a poor girl, if she can't right herself by a breach of promise, doesn't know what to do. Does she, John?"
"A girl who'd right herself that way wouldn't be worth having."
"I don't know about that. When a poor girl is in such a position, she has to be aided by her friends. I suppose, then, Miss Lily Dale won't bring a breach of promise against him."
This mention of Lily's name in such a place was sacrilege in the ears of poor Eames. "I cannot tell," said he, "what may be the intention of the lady of whom you speak. But from what I know of her friends, I should not think that she will be disgraced by such a proceeding."
"That may be all very well for Miss Lily Dale—" Amelia said, and then she hesitated. It would not be well, she thought, absolutely to threaten him as yet,—not as long as there was any possibility that he might be won without a threat. "Of course I know all about it," she continued. "She was your L. D., you know. Not that I was ever jealous of her. To you she was no more than one of childhood's friends. Was she, Johnny?"
He stamped his foot upon the floor, and then jumped up from his seat. "I hate all that sort of twaddle about childhood's friends, and you know I do. You'll make me swear that I'll never come into this room again."
"Johnny!"
"So I will. The whole thing makes me sick. And as for that Mrs Lupex—"
"If this is what you learn, John, by going to a lord's house, I think you had better stay at home with your own friends."
"Of course I had;—much better stay at home with my own friends. Here's Mrs Lupex, and at any rate I can't stand her." So he went off, and walked round the Crescent, and down to the New Road, and almost into the Regent's Park, thinking of Lily Dale and of his own cowardice with Amelia Roper.
On the following morning he received a message, at about one o'clock, by the mouth of the Board-room messenger, informing him that his presence was required in the Board-room. "Sir Raffle Buffle has desired your presence, Mr Eames."
"My presence, Tupper! what for?" said Johnny, turning upon the messenger, almost with dismay.
"Indeed I can't say, Mr Eames; but Sir Raffle Buffle has desired your presence in the Board-room."
Such a message as that in official life always strikes awe into the heart of a young man. And yet, young men generally come forth from such interviews without having received any serious damage, and generally talk about the old gentlemen whom they have encountered with a good deal of light-spirited sarcasm,—or chaff as it is called in the slang phraseology of the day. It is that same "majesty which doth hedge a king" that does it. The turkey-cock in his own farmyard is master of the occasion, and the thought of him creates fear. A bishop in his lawn, a judge on the bench, a chairman in the big room at the end of a long table, or a policeman with his bull's-eye lamp upon his beat, can all make themselves terrible by means of those appanages of majesty which have been vouchsafed to them. But how mean is the policeman in his own home, and how few thought much of Sir Raffle Buffle as he sat asleep after dinner in his old slippers. How well can I remember the terror created within me by the air of outraged dignity with which a certain fine old gentleman, now long since gone, could rub his hands slowly, one on the other, and look up to the ceiling, slightly shaking his head, as though lost in the contemplation of my iniquities! I would become sick in my stomach, and feel as though my ankles had been broken. That upward turn of the eye unmanned me so completely that I was speechless as regarded any defence. I think that that old man could hardly have known the extent of his own power.
Once upon a time a careless lad, having the charge of a bundle of letters addressed to the King,—petitions, and such like, which in the course of business would not get beyond the hands of some Lord-in-waiting's deputy assistant,—sent the bag which contained them to the wrong place; to Windsor perhaps, if the Court were in London; or to St. James's, if it were at Windsor. He was summoned; and the great man of the occasion contented himself with holding his hands up to the heavens as he stood up from his chair, and, exclaiming twice, "Mis-sent the Monarch's pouch! Mis-sent the Monarch's pouch!" That young man never knew how he escaped from the Board-room; but for a time he was deprived of all power of exertion, and could not resume his work till he had had six months' leave of absence, and been brought round upon rum and asses' milk. In that instance the peculiar use of the word Monarch had a power which the official magnate had never contemplated. The story is traditional; but I believe that the circumstance happened as lately as in the days of George the Third.
John Eames could laugh at the present chairman of the Income-tax Office with great freedom, and call him old Ruffle Scuffle and the like; but now that he was sent for, he also, in spite of his radical propensities, felt a little weak about his ankle joints. He knew, from the first hearing of the message, that he was wanted with reference to that affair at the railway station. Perhaps there might be a rule that any clerk should be dismissed who used his fists in any public place. There were many rules entailing the punishment of dismissal for many offences,—and he began to think that he did remember something of such a regulation. However he got up, looked once round him upon his friends, and then followed Tupper into the Board-room.