The things we do!

Mrs. Pendennis. You fancy we are all jealous of one another. No protests
of ours can take that notion out of your heads. My dear Pen, I do not
intend to try. We are not jealous of mediocrity: we are not patient of
it. I dare say we are angry because we see men admire it so. You
gentlemen, who pretend to be our betters, give yourselves such airs of
protection, and profess such a lofty superiority over us, prove it by
quitting the cleverest woman in the room for the first pair of bright
eyes and dimpled cheeks that enter. It was those charms which attracted
you in Lady Clara, sir.
Pendennis. I think she is very pretty, and very innocent, and artless.
Mrs. P. Not very pretty, and perhaps not so very artless.
Pendennis. How can you tell, you wicked woman? Are you such a profound
deceiver yourself, that you can instantly detect artifice in others? O
Laura!
Mrs. P. We can detect all sorts of things. The inferior animals have
instincts, you know. (I must say my wife is always very satirical upon
this point of the relative rank of the sexes.


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