Page:The Confessions of a Well-Meaning Woman.djvu/152

Confessions of a Well-Meaning Woman me; I don’t know how long she is staying in London, but one would like her to take away a pleasant memory of such hospitality as one can shew her. Is there anything we can do to make a little return? I hardly like to go on taking with both hands.” “Well, I felt that from the first,” said Mr. Gorleigh. “Geordie Blanstock introduced me, and I came here once or twice. . . Then I felt. . . as you do; and I cried off. The only thing is, she hasn’t many friends, and I thought it wasn’t quite fair, perhaps, to stay away out of a sort of false delicacy. The poor little woman wants companionship.”

“Your feelings do you credit,” I said as gravely as I could.

Really, it would have been laughable if it had not been so disgusting. A man who lives by sponging on his friends for free meals to pretend that he was coming, against his will, to give “the poor little woman” the inestimable privilege of feeding him. . . But, if you please, that was the accepted “eye-wash”, as my boy would call it. In a spirit of pure mischief, I am afraid, I went from one to another: “Bat” Shenstone, “Laurie” Forman, “Theo” Standish, “Bunny” Fancroft. Always the same story! They didn’t come to the house for what they could get out of it; I must understand 140