"What a humbug that woman is!" honest old Dobbin mumbled to George, when he came back from Rebecca's box, whither he had conducted her in perfect silence, and with a countenance as glum as an undertaker's."She writhes and twists about like a snake.All the time she was here, didn't you see, George, how she was acting at the General over the way?""Humbug--acting! Hang it, she's the nicest little woman in England," George replied, showing his white teeth, and giving his ambrosial whiskers a twirl."You ain't a man of the world, Dobbin.Dammy, look at her now, she's talked over Tufto in no time.Look how he's laughing! Gad, what a shoulder she has! Emmy, why didn't you have a bouquet? Everybody has a bouquet.""Faith, then, why didn't you BOY one?" Mrs.O'Dowd said; and both Amelia and William Dobbin thanked her for this timely observation.But beyond this neither of the ladies rallied.Amelia was overpowered by the flash and the dazzle and the fashionable talk of her worldly rival.
Even the O'Dowd was silent and subdued after Becky's brilliant apparition, and scarcely said a word more about Glenmalony all the evening.
"When do you intend to give up play, George, as you have promised me, any time these hundred years?" Dobbin said to his friend a few days after the night at the Opera."When do you intend to give up sermonising?"was the other's reply."What the deuce, man, are you alarmed about? We play low; I won last night.You don't suppose Crawley cheats? With fair play it comes to pretty much the same thing at the year's end.""But I don't think he could pay if he lost," Dobbin said; and his advice met with the success which advice usually commands.Osborne and Crawley were repeatedly together now.General Tufto dined abroad almost constantly.
George was always welcome in the apartments (very close indeed to those of the General) which the aide-de-camp and his wife occupied in the hotel.
Amelia's manners were such when she and George visited Crawley and his wife at these quarters, that they had very nearly come to their first quarrel; that is, George scolded his wife violently for her evident unwillingness to go, and the high and mighty manner in which she comported herself towards Mrs.Crawley, her old friend; and Amelia did not say one single word in reply; but with her husband's eye upon her, and Rebecca scanning her as she felt, was, if possible, more bashful and awkward on the second visit which she paid to Mrs.Rawdon, than on her first call.
Rebecca was doubly affectionate, of course, and would not take notice, in the least, of her friend's coolness."Ithink Emmy has become prouder since her father's name was in the--since Mr.Sedley's MISFORTUNES," Rebecca said, softening the phrase charitably for George's ear.
"Upon my word, I thought when we were at Brighton she was doing me the honour to be jealous of me; and now I suppose she is scandalised because Rawdon, and I, and the General live together.Why, my dear creature, how could we, with our means, live at all, but for a friend to share expenses? And do you suppose that Rawdon is not big enough to take care of my honour? But I'm very much obliged to Emmy, very," Mrs.Rawdon said.
"Pooh, jealousy!" answered George, "all women are jealous.""And all men too.Weren't you jealous of General Tufto, and the General of you, on the night of the Opera?
Why, he was ready to eat me for going with you to visit that foolish little wife of yours; as if I care a pin for either of you," Crawley's wife said, with a pert toss of her head."Will you dine here? The dragon dines with the Commander-in-Chief.Great news is stirring.They say the French have crossed the frontier.We shall have a quiet dinner."George accepted the invitation, although his wife was a little ailing.They were now not quite six weeks married.
Another woman was laughing or sneering at her expense, and he not angry.He was not even angry with himself, this good-natured fellow.It is a shame, he owned to himself;but hang it, if a pretty woman WILL throw herself in your way, why, what can a fellow do, you know? I AMrather free about women, he had often said, smiling and nodding knowingly to Stubble and Spooney, and other comrades of the mess-table; and they rather respected him than otherwise for this prowess.Next to conquering in war, conquering in love has been a source of pride, time out of mind, amongst men in Vanity Fair, or how should schoolboys brag of their amours, or Don Juan be popular?
So Mr.Osborne, having a firm conviction in his own mind that he was a woman-killer and destined to conquer, did not run counter to his fate, but yielded himself up to it quite complacently.And as Emmy did not say much or plague him with her jealousy, but merely became unhappy and pined over it miserably in secret, he chose to fancy that she was not suspicious of what all his acquaintance were perfectly aware--namely, that he was carrying on a desperate flirtation with Mrs.Crawley.He rode with her whenever she was free.He pretended regimental business to Amelia (by which falsehood she was not in the least deceived), and consigning his wife to solitude or her brother's society, passed his evenings in the Crawleys' company; losing money to the husband and flattering himself that the wife was dying of love for him.
It is very likely that this worthy couple never absolutely conspired and agreed together in so many words: the one to cajole the young gentleman, whilst the other won his money at cards: but they understood each other perfectly well, and Rawdon let Osborne come and go with entire good humour.
George was so occupied with his new acquaintances that he and William Dobbin were by no means so much together as formerly.George avoided him in public and in the regiment, and, as we see, did not like those sermons which his senior was disposed to inflict upon him.
