I told you that she had assurance—impudence I should have called it, for no other word is strong enough. Such things as I have heard Harriot Freke say!—You will not believe it—but her conversation at first absolutely made me, like an old-fashioned fool, wish I had a fan to play with. But, to my astonishment, all this took surprisingly with a set of fashionable young men. I found it necessary to reform my manners. If I had not taken heart of grace, and publicly abjured the heresies of false delicacy, I should have been excommunicated. Lady Delacour’s sprightly elegance—allow me to speak of myself in the style in which the newspaper writers talk of me—Lady Delacour’s sprightly elegance was but pale, not to say faded pink, compared with the scarlet of Mrs. Freke’s dashing audacity. As my rival, she would on certain ground have beat me hollow; it was therefore good policy to make her my friend: we joined forces, and nothing could stand against us. But I have no right to give myself credit for good policy in forming this intimacy; I really followed the dictates of my heart or my imagination. There was a frankness in Harriot’s manner which I mistook for artlessness of character: she spoke with such unbounded freedom on certain subjects, that I gave her credit for unbounded sincerity on all subjects: she had the talent of making the world believe that virtue to be invulnerable by nature which disdained the common outworks of art for its defence. I, amongst others, took it for granted, that the woman who could make it her sport to ‘touch the brink of all we hate,’ must have a stronger head than other people. I have since been convinced, however, of my mistake. I am persuaded that few can touch the brink without tumbling headlong down the precipice. Don’t apply this, my dear, literally, to the person of whom we were speaking; I am not base enough to betray her secrets, however I may have been provoked by her treachery. Of her character and history you shall hear nothing but what is necessary for my own justification. The league of amity between us was scarcely ratified before my Lord Delacour came, with his wise remonstrating face, to beg me ‘to consider what was due to my own honour and his.’ Like the cosmogony-man in the Vicar of Wakefield, he came out over and over with this cant phrase, which had once stood him instead. ‘Do you think, my lord,’ said I, ‘that because I gave up poor Lawless to oblige you, I shall give up all common sense to suit myself to your taste? Harriot Freke is visited by everybody but old dowagers and old maids: I am neither an old dowager nor an old maid—the consequence is obvious, my lord.’ Pertness in dialogue, my dear, often succeeds better with my lord than wit: I therefore saved the sterling gold, and bestowed upon him nothing but counters. I tell you this to save the credit of my taste and judgment.

“But to return to my friendship for Harriot Freke. I, of course, repeated to her every word which had passed between my husband and me. She out-heroded Herod upon the occasion; and laughed so much at what she called my folly in pleading guilty in the Lawless cause, that I was downright ashamed of myself, and, purely to prove my innocence, I determined, upon the first convenient opportunity, to renew my intimacy with the colonel. The opportunity which I so ardently desired of redeeming my independence was not long wanting. Lawless, as my stars (which you know are always more in fault than ourselves) would have it, returned just at this time from the continent, where he had been with his regiment; he returned with a wound across his forehead and a black fillet, which made him look something more like a hero, and ten times more like a coxcomb, than ever. He was in fashion, at all events; and amongst other ladies, Mrs. Luttridge, odious Mrs. Luttridge! smiled upon him. The colonel, however, had taste enough to know the difference between smile and smile: he laid himself and his laurels at my feet, and I carried him and them about in triumph. Wherever I went, especially to Mrs. Luttridge’s, envy and scandal joined hands to attack me, and I heard wondering and whispering wherever I went. I had no object in view but to provoke my husband; therefore, conscious of the purity of my intentions, it was my delight to brave the opinion of the wondering world.