Vanity Fair - Page 170/573

"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."