"I never insulted you, sir. I said I begged you to remember your son
was a gentleman as well as yourself. I know very well that you give me
plenty of money," said George (fingering a bundle of notes which he had
got in the morning from Mr. Chopper). "You tell it me often enough,
sir. There's no fear of my forgetting it."
"I wish you'd remember other things as well, sir," the sire answered.
"I wish you'd remember that in this house--so long as you choose to
HONOUR it with your COMPANY, Captain--I'm the master, and that name,
and that that--that you--that I say--"
"That what, sir?" George asked, with scarcely a sneer, filling another
glass of claret.
"----!" burst out his father with a screaming oath--"that the name of
those Sedleys never be mentioned here, sir--not one of the whole damned
lot of 'em, sir."
"It wasn't I, sir, that introduced Miss Sedley's name. It was my
sisters who spoke ill of her to Miss Swartz; and by Jove I'll defend
her wherever I go. Nobody shall speak lightly of that name in my
presence. Our family has done her quite enough injury already, I
think, and may leave off reviling her now she's down. I'll shoot any
man but you who says a word against her."
"Go on, sir, go on," the old gentleman said, his eyes starting out of
his head.
"Go on about what, sir? about the way in which we've treated that angel
of a girl? Who told me to love her? It was your doing. I might have
chosen elsewhere, and looked higher, perhaps, than your society: but I
obeyed you. And now that her heart's mine you give me orders to fling
it away, and punish her, kill her perhaps--for the faults of other
people. It's a shame, by Heavens," said George, working himself up
into passion and enthusiasm as he proceeded, "to play at fast and loose
with a young girl's affections--and with such an angel as that--one so
superior to the people amongst whom she lived, that she might have
excited envy, only she was so good and gentle, that it's a wonder
anybody dared to hate her. If I desert her, sir, do you suppose she
forgets me?"
"I ain't going to have any of this dam sentimental nonsense and humbug
here, sir," the father cried out. "There shall be no beggar-marriages
in my family. If you choose to fling away eight thousand a year, which
you may have for the asking, you may do it: but by Jove you take your
pack and walk out of this house, sir. Will you do as I tell you, once
for all, sir, or will you not?"
"Marry that mulatto woman?" George said, pulling up his shirt-collars.
"I don't like the colour, sir. Ask the black that sweeps opposite
Fleet Market, sir. I'm not going to marry a Hottentot Venus."