"Oh, yes, I meant it fast enough," said Grasslough afterwards up in the card-room. The other men who had been together had quickly followed him, leaving Sir Felix alone, and they had collected themselves there not with the hope of play, but thinking that they would be less interrupted than in the smoking-room. "I don't suppose we shall ever any of us be here again, and as he did come in I thought I would tell him my mind."
"What's the use of taking such a lot of trouble?" said Dolly. "Of course he's a bad fellow. Most fellows are bad fellows in one way or another."
"But he's bad all round," said the bitter enemy.
"And so this is to be the end of the Beargarden," said Lord Nidderdale with a peculiar melancholy. "Dear old place! I always felt it was too good to last. I fancy it doesn't do to make things too easy;—one has to pay so uncommon dear for them! And then, you know, when you've got things easy, then they get rowdy;—and, by George, before you know where you are, you find yourself among a lot of blackguards. If one wants to keep one's self straight, one has to work hard at it, one way or the other. I suppose it all comes from the fall of Adam."
"If Solomon, Solon, and the Archbishop of Canterbury were rolled into one, they couldn't have spoken with more wisdom," said Mr. Lupton.
"Live and learn," continued the young lord. "I don't think anybody has liked the Beargarden so much as I have, but I shall never try this kind of thing again. I shall begin reading blue books to-morrow, and shall dine at the Carlton. Next session I shan't miss a day in the House, and I'll bet anybody a fiver that I make a speech before Easter. I shall take to claret at 20s. a dozen, and shall go about London on the top of an omnibus."
"How about getting married?" asked Dolly.
"Oh;—that must be as it comes. That's the governor's affair. None of you fellows will believe me, but, upon my word, I liked that girl; and I'd 've stuck to her at last,—only that there are some things a fellow can't do. He was such a thundering scoundrel!"
After a while Sir Felix followed them up-stairs, and entered the room as though nothing unpleasant had happened below. "We can make up a rubber;—can't we?" said he.
"I should say not," said Nidderdale.