"What a humbug that woman is!" honest old Dobbin mumbled to George,
when he came back from Rebecca's box, whither he had conducted her in
perfect silence, and with a countenance as glum as an undertaker's.
"She writhes and twists about like a snake. All the time she was here,
didn't you see, George, how she was acting at the General over the way?"
"Humbug--acting! Hang it, she's the nicest little woman in England,"
George replied, showing his white teeth, and giving his ambrosial
whiskers a twirl. "You ain't a man of the world, Dobbin. Dammy, look
at her now, she's talked over Tufto in no time. Look how he's
laughing! Gad, what a shoulder she has! Emmy, why didn't you have a
bouquet? Everybody has a bouquet."
"Faith, then, why didn't you BOY one?" Mrs. O'Dowd said; and both
Amelia and William Dobbin thanked her for this timely observation. But
beyond this neither of the ladies rallied. Amelia was overpowered by
the flash and the dazzle and the fashionable talk of her worldly rival.
Even the O'Dowd was silent and subdued after Becky's brilliant
apparition, and scarcely said a word more about Glenmalony all the
evening.
"When do you intend to give up play, George, as you have promised me,
any time these hundred years?" Dobbin said to his friend a few days
after the night at the Opera. "When do you intend to give up
sermonising?" was the other's reply. "What the deuce, man, are you
alarmed about? We play low; I won last night. You don't suppose
Crawley cheats? With fair play it comes to pretty much the same thing
at the year's end."
"But I don't think he could pay if he lost," Dobbin said; and his
advice met with the success which advice usually commands. Osborne and
Crawley were repeatedly together now. General Tufto dined abroad
almost constantly. George was always welcome in the apartments (very
close indeed to those of the General) which the aide-de-camp and his
wife occupied in the hotel.
Amelia's manners were such when she and George visited Crawley and his
wife at these quarters, that they had very nearly come to their first
quarrel; that is, George scolded his wife violently for her evident
unwillingness to go, and the high and mighty manner in which she
comported herself towards Mrs. Crawley, her old friend; and Amelia did
not say one single word in reply; but with her husband's eye upon her,
and Rebecca scanning her as she felt, was, if possible, more bashful
and awkward on the second visit which she paid to Mrs. Rawdon, than on
her first call.
Rebecca was doubly affectionate, of course, and would not take notice,
in the least, of her friend's coolness. "I think Emmy has become
prouder since her father's name was in the--since Mr. Sedley's
MISFORTUNES," Rebecca said, softening the phrase charitably for
George's ear.