A Simpleton Part 19

"Say a stable."

"It was by your advice, you false-hearted creature."

"You are a fool."

"You are worse; you are a traitress."

"Then don't you have anything to do with me."

"Heaven forbid I should, you treacherous thing!"

"You insolent--insolent--I hate you."

"And I despise you."

"I always hated you at bottom."

"That's why you pretended to love me, you wretch."

"Well, I pretend no more. I am your enemy for life."

"Thank you. You have told the truth for once in your life."

"I have. And he shall never call in your husband; so you may leave Mayfair as soon as you like."

"Not to please you, madam. We can get on without traitors."

And so they parted, with eyes that gleamed like tigers.

Rosa drove home in great agitation, and tried to tell Christopher; but choked, and became hysterical. The husband-physician coaxed and scolded her out of that; and presently in came Uncle Philip, full of the humors of the auction-room. He told about the little boy with a delight that disgusted Mrs. Staines, and then was particularly merry on female friendships. "Fancy a man going to a sale with his friend, and bidding against him on the sly."

"She is no friend of mine. We are enemies for life."

"And you were to be friends till death," said Staines, with a sigh.

Philip inquired who she was.

"Mrs. John Cole."

"Not of Curzon Street?"

"Yes."

"And you have quarrelled with her?"

"Yes."

"Well, but her husband is a general pract.i.tioner."

"She is a traitress."

"But her husband could put a good deal of money in Christopher's way."

"I can't help it. She is a traitress."

"And you have quarrelled with her about an old wardrobe."

"No, for her disloyalty, and her base good-for-nothingness. Oh! oh! oh!"

Uncle Philip got up, looking sour. "Good afternoon, Mrs. Christopher,"

said he, very dryly.

Christopher accompanied him to the foot of the stairs. "Well, Christopher," said he, "matrimony is a blunder at the best; and you have not done the thing by halves. You have married a simpleton. She will be your ruin."

"Uncle Philip, since you only come here to insult us, I hope in future you will stay at home."

"Oh! with pleasure, sir. Good-by!"

CHAPTER VII.

Christopher Staines came back, looking pained and disturbed. "There,"

said he, "I feared it would come to this. I have quarrelled with Uncle Philip."

"Oh! how could you?"

"He affronted me."

"What about?"

"Never you mind. Don't let us say anything more about it, darling. It is a pity, a sad pity--he was a good friend of mine once."

He paused, entered what had pa.s.sed in his diary, and then sat down, with a gentle expression of sadness on his manly features. Rosa hung about him, soft and pitying, till it cleared away, at all events for the time.

Next day they went together to clear the goods Rosa had purchased.

Whilst the list was being made out in the office, in came the fair-haired boy, with a ten-pound note in his very hand. Rosa caught sight of it, and turned to the auctioneer, with a sweet, pitying face:

"Oh! sir, surely you will not take all that money from him, poor child, for a rickety old chair."

The auctioneer stared with amazement at her simplicity, and said, "What would the vendors say to me?"

She looked distressed, and said, "Well, then, really we ought to raise a subscription, poor thing!"

"Why, ma'am," said the auctioneer, "he isn't hurt: the article belonged to his mother and her sister; the brother-in-law isn't on good terms; so he demanded a public sale. She will get back four pun ten out of it."

Here the clerk put in his word. "And there's five pounds paid, I forgot to tell you."