Arabella proposed to Freshfield to rise.  “Don’t the ladies go first?” the wit turned sensualist stammered; and incurred that worse than frown, a cold look of half-comprehension, which reduces indefinitely the proportions of the object gazed at.  There were probably a dozen very young men in the room waiting to rise with their partners at a signal for dancing; and these could not be calculated upon to take an initiative, or follow one—­as ladies, poor slaves! will do when the electric hostess rustles.  The men present were non-conductors.  Arabella knew that she could carry off the women, but such a proceeding would leave her father at the mercy of the wine; and, moreover, the probability was that Mrs. Chump would remain by him, and, sole in a company of males, explode her sex with ridicule, Brookfield in the bargain.  So Arabella, under a prophetic sense of evil, waited; and this came of it.  Mr. Pole patted Mrs. Chump’s hand publicly.  In spite of the steady hum of small-talk—­in spite of Freshfield Sumner’s circulation of a crisp anecdote—­in spite of Lady Gosstre’s kind effort to stop him by engaging him in conversation, Mr. Pole forced on for a speech.  He said that he had not been the thing lately.  It might be his legs, as his dear friend Martha, on his right, insisted; but he had felt it in his head, though as strong as any man present.

“Harrk at ’m!” cried Mrs. Chump, letting her eyes roll fondly away from him into her glass.

“Business, my lady!” Mr. Pole resumed.  “Ah, you don’t know what that is.  We’ve got to work hard to keep our heads up equal with you.  We don’t swim with corks.  And my old friend, Ralph Tinley—­he sells iron, and has got a mine.  That’s simple.  But, my God, ma’am, when a man has his eye on the Indian Ocean, and the Atlantic, and the Baltic, and the Black Sea, and half-a-dozen colonies at once, he—­you—­”

“Well, it’s a precious big eye he’s got, Pole,” Mrs. Chump came to his relief.

“—­he don’t know whether he’s a ruined dog, or a man to hold up his head in any company.”

“Oh, Lord, Pole, if ye’re going to talk of beggary!” Mrs. Chump threw up her hands.  “My lady, I naver could abide the name of ’t.  I’m a kind heart, ye know, but I can’t bear a ragged friend.  I hate ’m!  He seems to give me a pinch.”

Having uttered this, it struck her that it was of a kind to convulse Mrs. Lupin, for whose seizures she could never accurately account; and looking round, she perceived, sure enough, that little forlorn body agitated, with a handkerchief to her mouth.

“As to Besworth,” Mr. Pole had continued, “I might buy twenty Besworths.  If—­if the cut shows the right card.  If—­” Sweat started on his forehead, and he lifted his eyebrows, blinking.  “But none!” (he smote the table) “none can say I haven’t been a good father!  I’ve educated my girls to marry the best the land can show.  I bought a house to marry them out of; it was their own idea.”  He caught Arabella’s eyes.  “I thought so, at all events; for why should I have paid the money if I hadn’t thought so? when then—­yes, that sum...” (was he choking!) “saved me!—­saved me!”