I suppose a man’s vanity is stronger than any other passion in him; for I blush, even now, as I recall the humiliation of those distant days, the memory of which still smarts, though the fever of balked desire has passed away more than a score of years ago.  When the writer’s descendants come to read this memoir, I wonder will they have lived to experience a similar defeat and shame?  Will they ever have knelt to a woman who has listened to them, and played with them, and laughed with them—­who beckoning them with lures and caresses, and with Yes smiling from her eyes, has tricked them on to their knees, and turned her back and left them.  All this shame Mr. Esmond had to undergo; and he submitted, and revolted, and presently came crouching back for more.

After this feste, my young Lord Ashburnham’s coach was for ever rolling in and out of Kensington Square; his lady-mother came to visit Esmond’s mistress, and at every assembly in the town, wherever the Maid of Honor made her appearance, you might be pretty sure to see the young gentleman in a new suit every week, and decked out in all the finery that his tailor or embroiderer could furnish for him.  My lord was for ever paying Mr. Esmond compliments:  bidding him to dinner, offering him horses to ride, and giving him a thousand uncouth marks of respect and good-will.  At last, one night at the coffee-house, whither my lord came considerably flushed and excited with drink, he rushes up to Mr. Esmond, and cries out—­“Give me joy, my dearest Colonel; I am the happiest of men.”

“The happiest of men needs no dearest colonel to give him joy,” says Mr. Esmond.  “What is the cause of this supreme felicity?”

“Haven’t you heard?” says he.  “Don’t you know?  I thought the family told you everything:  the adorable Beatrix hath promised to be mine.”

“What!” cries out Mr. Esmond, who had spent happy hours with Beatrix that very morning—­had writ verses for her, that she had sung at the harpsichord.

“Yes,” says he; “I waited on her to-day.  I saw you walking towards Knightsbridge as I passed in my coach; and she looked so lovely, and spoke so kind, that I couldn’t help going down on my knees, and—­and—­sure I am the happiest of men in all the world; and I’m very young; but she says I shall get older:  and you know I shall be of age in four months; and there’s very little difference between us; and I’m so happy.  I should like to treat the company to something.  Let us have a bottle—­a dozen bottles—­and drink the health of the finest woman in England.”

Esmond left the young lord tossing off bumper after bumper, and strolled away to Kensington to ask whether the news was true.  ’Twas only too sure:  his mistress’s sad, compassionate face told him the story; and then she related what particulars of it she knew, and how my young lord had made his offer, half an hour after Esmond went away that morning, and in the very room where the song lay yet on the harpsichord, which Esmond had writ, and they had sung together.