LETTER LXXVIII
My dear lady,
Now I will proceed with my former subject: and with the greater pleasure, as what follows makes still more in favour of the Countess's character, than what went before, although that set it in a better light than it had once appeared to me in. I began as follows:
"Will you be pleased, Sir, to favour me with the continuation of our last subject?"--"I will, my dear."--"You left off, Sir, with acquitting me for breaking out into that flood of tears, which occasioned your abrupt departure. But, dear Sir, will you be pleased, to satisfy me about that affecting information, of your intention and my lady's to live at Tunbridge together?"
"'Tis absolute malice and falsehood. Our intimacy had not proceeded so far; and, thoughtless as my sister's letters suppose the lady, she would have spurned at such a proposal, I dare say."
"Well, but then, Sir, as to the expression to her uncle, that she had rather have been a certain gentleman's second wife?"
"I believe she might, in a passion, say something like it to him: he had been teazing her (from the time that I held an argument in favour of that foolish topic polygamy, in his company and his niece's, and in that of her sister and the Viscount,) with cautions against conversing with a man, who, having, as he was pleased to say behind my back, married beneath him, wanted to engage the affections of a lady of birth, in order to recover, by doubling that fault upon her, his lost reputation.
"She despised his insinuation enough to answer him, that she thought my arguments in behalf of polygamy were convincing. This set him a raving, and he threw some coarse reflections upon her, which could not be repeated, if one may guess at them, by her being unable to tell me them; and then to vex him more, and to revenge herself, she said something like what was reported: which was handle enough for her uncle; who took care to propagate it with an indiscretion peculiar to himself; for I heard it in three different companies, before I knew any thing of it from herself; and when I did, it was so repeated, as you, my dear, would hardly have censured her for it, the provocation considered."
"Well, but then, dear Sir, there is nothing at all amiss, at this rate, in the correspondence between my lady and you?"
"Not on her side, I dare say, if her ladyship can be excused to punctilio, and for having a greater esteem for a married man, than he can deserve, or than may be strictly defended to a person of your purity and niceness."
"Well, Sir, this is very noble in you. I love to hear the gentlemen generous in points where the honour of our sex is concerned. But pray. Sir, what then was there on your side, in that matter, that made you give me so patient and so kind a hearing?"
"Now, my dear, you come to the point: at first it was nothing in me but vanity, pride, and love of intrigue, to try my strength, where I had met with some encouragement, as I thought, at the masquerade; where the lady went farther, too, than she would have done, had she not thought I was a single man. For, by what I have told you, Pamela, you will observe, that she tried to satisfy herself on that head, as soon as she well could. Mrs. Nelthorpe acquainted me afterwards, when better known to each other, that her lady was so partial in my favour, (who can always govern their fancies, my dear?) as to think, so early as at the masquerade, that if every thing answered appearances, and that I were a single man, she, who has a noble and independent fortune, might possibly be induced to make me happy in her choice.