CHAPTER VIII.
LIGHTLY WON, LIGHTLY LOST.—A DIALOGUE OF EQUAL INSTRUCTION AND AMUSEMENT.—A VISIT TO SIR GODFREY KNELLER.
ONE morning Tarleton breakfasted with me. “I don’t see the little page,” said he, “who was always in attendance in your anteroom; what the deuce has become of him?”
“You must ask his mistress; she has quarrelled with me, and withdrawn both her favour and her messenger.”
“What! the Lady Hasselton quarrelled with you! Diable! Wherefore?”
“Because I am not enough of the ‘pretty fellow;’ am tired of carrying hood and scarf, and sitting behind her chair through five long acts of a dull play; because I disappointed her in not searching for her at every drum and quadrille party; because I admired not her monkey; and because I broke a teapot with a toad for a cover.”
“And is not that enough?” cried Tarleton. “Heavens! what a black bead-roll of offences; Mrs. Merton would have discarded me for one of them. However, thy account has removed my surprise; I heard her praise thee the other day; now, as long as she loved thee, she always abused thee like a pickpocket.”
“Ha! ha! ha!—and what said she in my favour?”
“Why, that you were certainly very handsome, though you were small; that you were certainly a great genius, though every one would not discover it; and that you certainly had the air of high birth, though you were not nearly so well dressed as Beau Tippetly. But entre nous, Devereux, I think she hates you, and would play you a trick of spite—revenge is too strong a word—if she could find an opportunity.”