Part 5 (1/2)

TOUCHIT.--Stop! I say, Julia! [She returns, he looks at her, takes her hand.] Why do you dress yourself in this odd poky way? You used to be a very smartly dressed girl. Why do you hide your hair, and wear such a dowdy, high gown, Julia?

JULIA.--You mustn't call me Julia, Captain Touchit.

TOUCHIT.--Why? when I lived in your mother's lodging, I called you Julia. When you brought up the tea, you didn't mind being called Julia.

When we used to go to the play with the tickets the Editor gave us, who lived on the second floor--

JULIA.--The wretch!--don't speak of him!

TOUCHIT.--Ah! I am afraid he was a sad deceiver, that Editor. He was a very clever fellow. What droll songs he used to sing! What a heap of play-tickets, diorama-tickets, concert-tickets, he used to give you! Did he touch your heart, Julia?

JULIA.--Fiddlededee! No man ever touched my heart, Captain Touchit.

TOUCHIT.--What! not even Tom Flight, who had the second floor after the Editor left it--and who cried so bitterly at the idea of going out to India without you? You had a tendre for him--a little pa.s.sion--you know you had. Why, even the ladies here know it. Mrs. Bonnington told me that you were waiting for a sweetheart in India to whom you were engaged; and Lady Kicklebury thinks you are dying in love for the absent swain.

JULIA.--I hope--I hope--you did not contradict them, Captain Touchit.

TOUCHIT.--Why not, my dear?

JULIA.--May I be frank with you? You were a kind, very kind friend to us--to me, in my youth.

TOUCHIT.--I paid my lodgings regularly, and my bills without asking questions. I never weighed the tea in the caddy, or counted the lumps of sugar, or heeded the rapid consumption of my liqueur--

JULIA.--Hush, hus.h.!.+ I know they were taken. I know you were very good to us. You helped my poor papa out of many a difficulty.

TOUCHIT [aside].--Tipsy old coal-merchant! I did, and he helped himself too.

JULIA.--And you were always our best friend, Captain Touchit. When our misfortunes came, you got me this situation with Mrs. Milliken--and, and--don't you see?--

TOUCHIT.--Well--what?

JULIA [laughing].--I think it is best, under the circ.u.mstances, that the ladies here should suppose I am engaged to be married--or or, they might be--might be jealous, you understand. Women are sometimes jealous of others,--especially mothers and mothers-in-law.

TOUCHIT.--Oh, you arch schemer! And it is for that you cover up that beautiful hair of yours, and wear that demure cap?

JULIA [slyly].--I am subject to rheumatism in the head, Captain Touchit.

TOUCHIT.--It is for that you put on the spectacles, and make yourself look a hundred years old?

JULIA.--My eyes are weak, Captain Touchit.

TOUCHIT.--Weak with weeping for Tom Flight. You hypocrite! Show me your eyes!

MISS P.--Nonsense!

TOUCHIT.--Show me your eyes, I say, or I'll tell about Tom Flight and that he has been married at Madras these two years.

MISS P.--Oh, you horrid man! [takes gla.s.ses off.] There.

TOUCHIT.--Translucent orbs! beams of flas.h.i.+ng light! lovely lashes veiling celestial brightness! No, they haven't cried much for Tom Flight, that faithless captain! nor for Lawrence O'Reilly, that killing Editor. It is lucky you keep the gla.s.ses on them, or they would transfix Horace Milliken, my friend the widower here. DO you always wear them when you are alone with him?

MISS P.--I never AM alone with him. Bless me! If Lady Kicklebury thought my eyes were--well, well--you know what I mean,--if she thought her son-in-law looked at me, I should be turned out of doors the next day, I am sure I should. And then, poor Mr. Milliken! he never looks at ME--heaven help him! Why, he can't see me for her ladys.h.i.+p's nose and awful caps and ribbons! He sits and looks at the portrait yonder, and sighs so. He thinks that he is lost in grief for his wife at this very moment.

TOUCHIT.--What a woman that was--eh, Julia--that departed angel! What a temper she had before her departure!