On another day the packet came in. It had been blowing fresh, and it

always suited Becky's humour to see the droll woe-begone faces of the

people as they emerged from the boat. Lady Slingstone happened to be

on board this day. Her ladyship had been exceedingly ill in her

carriage, and was greatly exhausted and scarcely fit to walk up the

plank from the ship to the pier. But all her energies rallied the

instant she saw Becky smiling roguishly under a pink bonnet, and giving

her a glance of scorn such as would have shrivelled up most women, she

walked into the Custom House quite unsupported. Becky only laughed:

but I don't think she liked it. She felt she was alone, quite alone,

and the far-off shining cliffs of England were impassable to her.

The behaviour of the men had undergone too I don't know what change.

Grinstone showed his teeth and laughed in her face with a familiarity

that was not pleasant. Little Bob Suckling, who was cap in hand to her

three months before, and would walk a mile in the rain to see for her

carriage in the line at Gaunt House, was talking to Fitzoof of the

Guards (Lord Heehaw's son) one day upon the jetty, as Becky took her

walk there. Little Bobby nodded to her over his shoulder, without

moving his hat, and continued his conversation with the heir of Heehaw.

Tom Raikes tried to walk into her sitting-room at the inn with a cigar

in his mouth, but she closed the door upon him, and would have locked

it, only that his fingers were inside. She began to feel that she was

very lonely indeed. "If HE'D been here," she said, "those cowards

would never have dared to insult me." She thought about "him" with

great sadness and perhaps longing--about his honest, stupid, constant

kindness and fidelity; his never-ceasing obedience; his good humour;

his bravery and courage. Very likely she cried, for she was

particularly lively, and had put on a little extra rouge, when she came

down to dinner.

She rouged regularly now; and--and her maid got Cognac for her besides

that which was charged in the hotel bill.

Perhaps the insults of the men were not, however, so intolerable to her

as the sympathy of certain women. Mrs. Crackenbury and Mrs. Washington

White passed through Boulogne on their way to Switzerland. The party

were protected by Colonel Horner, young Beaumoris, and of course old

Crackenbury, and Mrs. White's little girl. THEY did not avoid her.

They giggled, cackled, tattled, condoled, consoled, and patronized her

until they drove her almost wild with rage. To be patronized by THEM!

she thought, as they went away simpering after kissing her. And she

heard Beaumoris's laugh ringing on the stair and knew quite well how to

interpret his hilarity.




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