"No," answered somebody, "only a day; we were sorry he quitted so soon. What a deuced pleasant, intelligent fellow he is!"
"I think him very hawnsome," drawled a greyish-looking youth, like a raw March morning.
"By jingo, yes!" chimed a third; "if I were a woman, he is just the man I'd fall over head and ears in love with."
"Now, I don't think that," said the raw one, "he's too cold; and I don't quite like his long moustache."
"Well," retracted the second speaker, "perhaps I said too much; he certainly is well-looking, but he wants style; and somehow the ladies don't seem to admire him—they are the best judges."
"I tell you what," exclaimed Lord Randolph; "I think him one of the most distinguished-looking fellows I ever saw, and, were I in the service, would give half my pay for his moustache; why, 'tis the most perfect raven's wing I ever saw, and silky like his hair. My only surprise is, that one has never heard of any love affair of his; and here, as in Florence, he always moves in the best society."
"Who is he?" asked an elderly epicure, waking up from a dream "in memoriam" of the exquisite dinner his host had set before them.
"Oh! a—nobody, I believe," answered some one. "A decent family, I have heard, in the country; but then he is very unpresuming—that's one thing."
"Faith!" answered Lord Randolph, "he was sought after, courted, by every one in Florence; but the fellow seemed to me to dislike society, like one absorbed either by his art, or some secret preying thoughts."
"Perhaps he was a government spy," drawled the one before alluded to.