But the music of her voice had so charmed him that he did not
like to interrupt it even to speak of that which was nearest his
heart. David sighed deeply, standing there alone.
Mrs. Bazalgette clinched her little fists and looked round for the
means of vengeance. David went down on his knees. La Bazalgette glared
through the crack, and wondered what on earth he was at now. Oh! he
was praying. "He loves her: he is eccentricity itself; so he is
praying for her, and on _my_ doorsteps" (the householder wounded
as well as the flirt). It was lucky she had not "a thunderbolt in her
eye"--Shakespeare, or a celestial messenger of the wrong sort would
have descended on the devout mariner. It was more than Mrs. Bazalgette
could bear: she had now and then, not often, unladylike impulses. One
of them had set her crouching behind the door of an outhouse, and
listening through a crack; and now she had another, an irresistible
one: it was, to take that empty flower-pot, fling it as hard as ever
she could at the devotee, then shut the door quick, fly out at the
other door, and leave her faithless swain in the agony of knowing
himself detected and exposed by some unknown and undiscoverable enemy.
For a vengeance extemporized in less than half a second this was very
respectable. Well, she clawed the flower-pot noiselessly, put her
other hand on the door, cast a hasty glance at the means of retreat,
and--things took another twist: she heard the rustle of a coming gown,
and drew back again, and out came Lucy, and nearly ran over David, who
was not on his knees after all, but down on his nose, prostrate
Orientally.
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