'To be sure,' said Wogan.
'Her ladyship sits yonder.'
Mr. Wogan looked. Her ladyship sat with her back towards him at the table nearest to that which stood empty. She had been screened from his sight by the young gentleman now at his elbow. As Wogan looked, Lady Oxford turned with an anxious smile and a glance beyond his shoulder. The smile, the glance braced Mr. Wogan. For doubtless her ladyship looked to discover whether the Parson followed in his steps.
He approached Lady Oxford. By her side sat Colonel Montague, black as thunder, and with a certain uneasy air of humiliation, like a man that finds himself ridiculously placed, and yet has not the courage to move. Mr. Wogan was encouraged; he could have wished the Colonel in no other mood. Mr. Wogan suddenly understood that it was himself who was cast to play with the shrouded figure, and the stake was the privilege of crossing swords with Montague.
From the Colonel his eye strayed to a youth who stood by Lady Oxford's chair, and the sight of him clean took Wogan's breath away. It was not merely his face, though even in that bright company he shone a planet among stars. Nature, indeed, thought Wogan, must have robbed a good many women of their due share of looks before she compounded so much beauty in the making of one man. But even more remarkable than his beauty was his extraordinary likeness to Wogan's King. At the first glance Wogan would have sworn that this youth was the King, grown younger, but that he knew his Majesty was at Antwerp waiting for the Blow to fall. At the second, however, he remarked a difference. The youth had the haunting eyes of the Stuarts, only they were lit with gaiety and sparkled with success; he had the clear delicate features of the Stuarts, only they were rounded out of their rueful length, and in place of a sad gravity, were bright with a sunny contentment. Misfortune had cast no shadows upon the face, had dug no hollows about the eyes.
Lady Oxford spoke to this paragon, smiled at him, drooped towards him. The Colonel shifted a foot, set his lips tight and frowned.
Wogan placed a hand upon his guide's sleeve.
'Will you tell me, if you please, the name of her ladyship's new friend?'
The young gentleman stared at Wogan.
'Let me perish, Mr. Hilton, but you are strangely out of the fashion. Or is it wit thus to affect an ignorance of our new conqueror, for whom women pine with love and men grow sour with envy? But indeed it is wit--the most engaging pleasantry. 'Twill make your reputation, Mr. Hilton.'