Intensely astonished, Twemlow puts his hand to his forehead, and sinks back in his chair meditating. Mrs. Lammle rises. All rise. The ladies go up stairs. The gentlemen soon saunter after them. Fledgeby has devoted the interval to taking an observation of Boots’s whiskers, Brewer’s whiskers, and Lammle’s whiskers, and considering which pattern of whisker he would prefer to produce out of himself by friction, if the Genie of the cheek would only answer to his rubbing.
In the drawing-room, groups form as usual. Lightwood, Boots, and Brewer, flutter like moths around that yellow wax candle — guttering down, and with some hint of a winding-sheet in it — Lady Tippins. Outsiders cultivate Veneering, M P., and Mrs. Veneering, W.M.P. Lammle stands with folded arms, Mephistophelean in a corner, with Georgiana and Fledgeby. Mrs. Lammle, on a sofa by a table, invites Mr. Twemlow’s attention to a book of portraits in her hand.
Mr. Twemlow takes his station on a settee before her, and Mrs. Lammle shows him a portrait.
“You have reason to be surprised,” she says softly, “but I wish you wouldn’t look so.”
Disturbed Twemlow, making an effort not to look so, looks much more so.
“I think, Mr. Twemlow, you never saw that distant connexion of yours before to-day?”
“No, never.”
“Now that you do see him, you see what he is. You are not proud of him?”
“To say the truth, Mrs. Lammle, no.”
“If you knew more of him, you would be less inclined to acknowledge him. Here is another portrait. What do you think of it?”
Twemlow has just presence of mind enough to say aloud: “Very like! Uncommonly like!”
“You have noticed, perhaps, whom he favours with his attentions? You notice where he is now, and how engaged?”
“Yes. But Mr. Lammle—”
She darts a look at him which he cannot comprehend, and shows him another portrait.
“Very good; is it not?”
“Charming!” says Twemlow.
“So like as to be almost a caricature? — Mr. Twemlow, it is impossible to tell you what the struggle in my mind has been, before I could bring myself to speak to you as I do now. It is only in the conviction that I may trust you never to betray me, that I can proceed. Sincerely promise me that you never will betray my confidence — that you will respect it, even though you may no longer respect me, — and I shall be as satisfied as if you had sworn it.”
“Madam, on the honor of a poor gentleman—”
“Thank you. I can desire no more. Mr. Twemlow, I implore you to save that child!”
“That child?”
“Georgiana. She will be sacrificed. She will be inveigled and married to that connexion of yours. It is a partnership affair, a money-speculation. She has no strength of will or character to help herself and she is on the brink of being sold into wretchedness for life.”