so well known, that it would be a downright affront, and
publicly resented, if you invited a woman of quality to dinner, without
at the same time inviting her two attendants of lover and husband,
between whom she always sits in state with great gravity. These
sub-marriages generally last twenty years together, and the lady often
commands the poor lover's estate even to the utter ruin of his family;
though they are as seldom begun by any passion as other matches. But a
man makes but an ill figure who is not in some commerce of this nature;
and a woman looks out for a lover as soon as she's married, as part of
her equipage, without which she could not be genteel; and the first
article of the treaty is establishing the pension, which remains to the
lady though the gallant should prove inconstant; and this chargeable
point of honour I look upon as the real foundation of so many wonderful
instances of constancy. I really know several women of the first
quality, whose pensions are as well known as their annual rents, and yet
nobody esteems them the less; on the contrary, their discretion would be
called in question, if they should be suspected to be mistresses for
nothing; and a great part of their emulation consists in trying who
shall get most; and having no intrigue at all is so far a disgrace that,
I'll assure you, a lady, who is very much my friend here, told me but
yesterday, how much I was obliged to her for justifying my conduct in a
conversation on my subject, where it was publicly asserted that I could
not possibly have common sense, that I had been about town above a
fortnight, and had made no steps towards commencing an amour. My friend
pleaded for me that my stay was uncertain; and she believed that was the
cause of my seeming stupidity and this was all she could find to say in
my justification."

But Lady Mary, though only twenty-seven, and therefore, according to her
own account, much too youthful for the gallants of Vienna, yet had an
experience:

"But one of the pleasantest adventures I ever met in my life was last
night, and which will give you a just idea after what a delicate manner
the _belles passions_ are managed in this country. I was at the assembly
of the Countess of ----, and the young Count of ---- led me down stairs,
and he asked me how long I intended to stay here? I made answer that my
stay depended on the emperor, and it was not in my power to determine
it. Well, madam, (said he), whether