“You surprise me, gentlemen,” said the Chevalier, with a strong guttural accent, lifting as he spoke his heavy lids for the first time. “I was not aware that Captain Jennico was so afflicted in his affections.”
“You surprise me, Chevalier,” returned Carew gaily. “I deemed you and he such friends. Why, I won a hundred from my Lord Ullswater but yestereven by wagering him that you would be the only man in the room to whom Jennico would speak more than ten words within the hour. The counting was not difficult. He said sixty-four to you and five to Jack.”
“Mr. Jennico has certainly shown me both kindness and sympathy,” said the Chevalier, who had now folded his strong white hands over the pack of cards, and sat the very embodiment of repose. “Doubtless our having both served in the same part of the world, though under different standards, has somewhat drawn us together: but he has not made me his confidant.”
“And so you don’t know the tale of Jennico and the Princess? ’Tis a dashed fine tale. Carew, you are a wit, or think you are—it comes to much the same thing: tune up, man, give your version; for,” turning to the Chevalier again, “there are now as many versions current as days in the month. ’Tis twenty-five minutes past; you had better get your I O U ready, Master Carew.”
“I have three hundred chances yet,” said Carew. Then turning to the foreigner, “Would you really, sir, care to hear the true story of our friend’s discomfiture? I am about the only man in town that knows the true one; but all that’s old scandal now—town talk of last year, as stale as Lady Villiers’s nine virgin daughters. There are a dozen new ones since. Would you not rather hear the last of his Royal Highness the Duke of C. and Lady W.? That is choice if you like, and as fresh as Rosalinda’s last admirer—eh, John?”
“I am not fond,” said the Chevalier drily, “of hearing those discussed who, being High Born, have the right to claim respect and homage. But I confess to some interest in my friend Mr. Jennico.”
“Begad, then,” responded Mr. Carew, flicking a grain of snuff from the ruffles of his pouting bosom, “I cannot promise to spare your scruples concerning scandal in high quarters, for the heroine of the romance is, it would appear, one of your own German royalties; but since you wish the story, you shall have it. There is then a certain Dorothea Maria Augusta Carolina Sophia, etc., etc., daughter of some Duke of Alsatia, Swabia, Dalmatia—no, stay, Lusatia, wherever that may be; ay, that’s the name—one of your two hundred odd principalities—you know all about it, I don’t—and Jennico, who, as you are aware, was in the Imperial service, met this wondrously beautiful Princess at some Court function somewhere. They danced, they conversed, she was fair and he was fond—fill it in for yourself. He thought himself a tremendous cock of the walk; to be brief, he aspired to act King Cophetua and the beggar maid, turned the other way, with the exception that he is as rich as Crœsus. He made so sure of the lady’s favour that he wrote over to his mother to announce the marriage as a settled thing. A royal alliance, with the prospect of speedily mounting to the throne on the strength of his wife’s pretensions! Ha, ha!”
“‘Tis a droll story,” said the Chevalier gravely; “and then?”
“Oh, then!—Zounds! you can conceive the flutter in the dovecot over him. My Lady Jennico, his mother, was blown out with pride, swimming in the higher regions, a perfect balloon! Gad, she would no longer bow to any one less than a Duke! She ran hither and thither cackling the news like the hen that has laid an egg. She sent—I was told on the best authority—to the Lord Chamberlain to know what precedence the young couple would be given at the next Birthday. She called at the College of Arms to inquire about the exact marshalling of the coat of Lusatia with that of Jennico. He, he! And whether the resultant monstrosity would comport a royal crown!”
“Faith, that’s a good one,” said Sir John, with a guffaw; “I had not heard that, Carew.”