Here was luck! Pomander seized this opportunity of turning the conversation to his object. With a malicious twinkle in his eye, he inquired of Mr. Cibber what made him fancy the house had lost its virtue in Mr. Vane's hands.
"Because," said Cibber, peevishly, "you all want the true _savoir faire_ nowadays, because there is no _juste milieu,_ young gentlemen. The young dogs of the day are all either unprincipled heathen, like yourself, or Amadisses, like our worthy host." The old gentleman's face and manners were like those of a patriarch, regretting the general decay of virtue, not the imaginary diminution of a single vice. He concluded with a sigh that, "The true _preux des dames_ went out with the full periwig; stap my vitals!"
"A bit of fat, Mr. Cibber?" said Quin, whose jokes were not polished.
"Jemmy, thou art a brute," was the reply.
"You refuse, sir?" said Quin, sternly.
"No, sir!" said Cibber, with dignity. "I accept."
Pomander's eye was ever on the door.
"The old are so unjust to the young," said he. "You pretend that the Deluge washed away iniquity, and that a rake is a fossil. What," said he, leaning as it were on every word, "if I bet you a cool hundred that Vane has a petticoat in that room, and that Mrs. Woffington shall unearth her?"
The malicious dog thought this was the surest way to effect a dramatic exposure, because if Peggy found Mabel to all appearances concealed, Peggy would scold her, and betray herself.
"Pomander!" cried Vane, in great heat; then, checking himself, he said coolly: "but you all know Pomander."
"None of you," replied that gentleman. "Bring a chair, sir," said he, authoritatively, to a servant; who, of course, obeyed.
Mrs. Clive looked at him, and thought: "There is something in this!"
"It is for the lady," said he, coolly. Then, leaning over the table, he said to Mrs. Woffington, with an impudent affectation of friendly understanding: "I ran her to earth in this house not ten minutes ago. Of course I don't know who she is! But," smacking his lips, "a rustic Amaryllis, breathing all May-buds and Meadowsweet."
"Have her out, Peggy!" shouted Cibber. "I know the run--there's the covert! Hark, forward! Ha, ha, ha!"
Mr. Vane rose, and, with a sternness that brought the old beau up with a run, he said: "Mr. Cibber, age and infirmity are privileged; but for you, Sir Charles--"
"Don't be angry," interposed Mrs. Woffington, whose terror was lest he should quarrel with so practiced a swordsman. "Don't you see it is a jest! and, as might be expected from poor Sir Charles, a very sorry one.
"A jest!" said Vane, white with rage. "Let it go no further, or it will be earnest!"
Mrs. Woffington placed her hand on his shoulder, and at that touch he instantly yielded, and sat down.
It was at this moment, when Sir Charles found himself for the present baffled--for he could no longer press his point, and search that room; when the attention of all was drawn to a dispute, which, for a moment, had looked like a quarrel; while Mrs. Woffington's hand still lingered, as only a woman's hand can linger in leaving the shoulder of the man she loves; it was at this moment the door opened of its own accord, and a most beautiful woman stood, with a light step, upon the threshold!
Nobody's back was to her, except Mr. Vane's. Every eye but his was spellbound upon her.
Mrs. Woffington withdrew her hand, as if a scorpion had touched her.
A stupor of astonishment fell on them all.
Mr. Vane, seeing the direction of all their eyes, slewed himself round in his chair into a most awkward position, and when he saw the lady, he was utterly dumfounded! But she, as soon as he turned his face her way, glided up to him, with a little half-sigh, half-cry of joy, and taking him round the neck, kissed him deliciously, while every eye at the table met every other eye in turn. One or two of the men rose; for the lady's beauty was as worthy of homage as her appearing was marvelous.
Mrs. Woffington, too astonished for emotion to take any definite shape, said, in what seemed an ordinary tone: "Who is this lady?"
"I am his wife, madam," said Mabel, in the voice of a skylark, and smiling friendly on the questioner.
"It is my wife!" said Vane, like a speaking-machine; he was scarcely in a conscious state. "It is my wife!" he repeated, mechanically.
The words were no sooner out of Mabel's mouth than two servants, who had never heard of Mrs. Vane before, hastened to place on Mr. Vane's right hand the chair Pomander had provided, a plate and napkin were there in a twinkling, and the wife modestly, but as a matter of course, courtesied low, with an air of welcome to all her guests, and then glided into the seat her servants obsequiously placed before her.
The whole thing did not take half a minute!