“I should be very glad to have it otherwise, I promise you, if I could: for it is not very pleasant to a man like me, to be _quizzed_ by half the young men of fashion in town, for having married a woman old enough to be my mother.” “Not quite old enough to be your mother,” said his cousin, in a conciliatory tone; “these young men of fashion are not the best calculators. Mrs. Germaine could not well have been your mother, since at the worst, by your own account, there is only ten years difference between you.” “Oh, but that is not all; for, what is still worse, Mrs. Germaine, thanks to the raking hours she keeps, and gaming and fretting, looks full ten years older than she is: so that you see, in fact, there are twenty years between us.” “I do not see it, indeed,” replied William, smiling; “but I am bound to believe what you assert. Let me ask you, to what does this discussion, concerning poor Mrs. Germaine’s age, tend?” “To justify, or at least to excuse, poor Mr. Germaine for keeping a mistress, who is something younger, something prettier, and, above all, something more good-humoured, than his wife.” “Perhaps the wife would be as good-humoured as the mistress, if she were as happy in possessing her husband’s affections.” “Affections! Oh, Lord! Affections are out of the question, Mrs. Germaine does not care a straw about my affections.” “And yet you dread that she should have the least hint of your having a mistress.” “Of course. You don’t see my jet. You don’t consider what a devil of a handle that would give her against me. She has no more love for me than this table; but she is jealous beyond all credibility, and she knows right well how to turn her jealousy to account. She would go caballing amongst her tribes of relations, and get all the women and all the world on her side, with this hue and cry of a mistress; and then I should be branded as the worst husband upon earth. That indeed I should laugh at, because all the young men in town would keep me in countenance; but Mrs. Germaine would rummage out the history of the sums of money I have given this girl, and then would set those against her play-debts, and I should have no more hold over her; for, you know, if I should begin to reproach her with the one, she would recriminate. She is a devil of a hand at that work! Neither you nor any man on earth, except myself, can form any idea of the temper of Mrs. Germaine! She is--to you, my dear friend, I may have the relief of saying so--she is, without exception, the most proud, peevish, selfish, unreasonable, extravagant, tyrannical, unfeeling woman in Christendom!” “In Christendom! Oh, you exaggerate, Charles!” “Exaggerate! Upon my soul, I do not: she is all I have said, and more.” “More! Impossible. Come, I see how it is; she has been unlucky at the card-table; you are angry, and therefore you speak, as angry people always do, {Footnote: Swift.} worse than you think.”