`Mr. Hargrave, will you please to step this way?' said I. He turned and looked at me in grave surprise. `Step this way, if you please!' I repeated, in so determined a manner that he could not, or did not choose to resist its authority. Somewhat reluctantly he ascended the steps and advanced a pace or two into the hall.
`And tell those gentlemen,' I continued-- `these men whether or not I yielded to your solicitations.'
`I don't understand you, Mrs. Huntingdon.'
`You do understand me, sir; and I charge you upon your honour as a gentleman (if you have any), to answer truly. Did I, or did I not?'
`No,' muttered he, turning away.
`Speak up sir; they can't hear you. Did I grant your request?'
`You did not.'
`No, I'll be sworn she didn't,' said Hattersley, `or he'd never look so black.'
`I'm willing to grant you the satisfaction of a gentleman, Huntingdon,' said Mr. Hargrave, calmly addressing his host, but with a bitter sneer upon his countenance.
`Go to the deuce!' replied the latter, with an impatient jerk of the head. Hargrave withdrew with a look of cold disdain, saying,--
`You know where to find me, should you feel disposed to send a friend.'
Muttered oaths and curses were all the answer this intimation obtained.
`Now Huntingdon, you see!' said Hattersley, `clear as the day.'
`I don't care what he sees,' said I, `or what he imagines; but you, Mr. Hattersley, when you hear my name belied and slandered, will you defend it?'
`I will. Blast me if I don't!'
I instantly departed, and shut myself into the library. What could possess me to make such a request of such a man? I 346 cannot tell, but drowning men catch at straws: they had driven me desperate between them; I hardly knew what I said. There was no other to preserve my name from being blackened and aspersed among this nest of boon companions, and through them, perhaps into the world; and beside my abandoned wretch of a husband, the base, malignant Grimsby, and the false villain Hargrave, this boarish ruffian, coarse and brutal as he was, shone like a glow-worm in the dark, among its fellow worms.
What a scene was this! Could I ever have imagined that I should be doomed to bear such insults under my own roof--to hear such things spoken in my presence--nay spoken to me and of me--and by those who arrogated to themselves the name of gentlemen? And could I have imagined that I should have been able to endure it as calmly, and to repel their insults as firmly and as boldly as I had done? A hardness such as this, is taught by rough experience and despair alone.
Such thoughts as these, chased one another through my mind, as I paced to and fro the room, and longed--oh, how I longed to take my child and leave them now, without an hour's delay! But it could not be: there was work before me--hard work, that must be done.
`Then let me do it,' said I, `and lose not a moment in vain repinings, and idle chafings against my fate, and those who influence it.'