“Ah, you are right—he must have thought me very—”
“Beautiful, no doubt.”
“Beautiful!—I hate the word, Lumley. I wish I were not handsome—I might then get some credit for my intellect.”
“Humph!” said Ferrers, significantly.
“Oh, you don’t think so, sceptic,” said Florence, shaking her head with a slight laugh, and an altered manner.
“Does it matter what I think,” said Ferrers, with an attempted touch at the sentimental, “when Lord This, and Lord That, and Mr. So-and-so, and Count What-d’ye-call-him, are all making their way to you, to dispossess me of my envied monopoly?”
While Ferrers spoke, several of the scattered loungers grouped around Florence, and the conversation, of which she was the cynosure, became animated and gay. Oh, how brilliant she was, that peerless Florence!—with what petulant and sparkling grace came wit and wisdom, and even genius, from those ruby lips! Even the assured Ferrers felt his subtle intellect as dull and coarse to hers, and shrank with a reluctant apprehension from the arrows of her careless and prodigal repartees. For there was a scorn in the nature of Florence Lascelles which made her wit pain more frequently than it pleased. Educated even to learning—courageous even to a want of feminacy—she delighted to sport with ignorance and pretension, even in the highest places; and the laugh that she excited was like lightning;—no one could divine where next it might fall.
But Florence, though dreaded and unloved, was yet courted, flattered, and the rage. For this there were two reasons: first, she was a coquette, and secondly, she was an heiress.
Thus the talkers in the room were divided into two principal groups, over one of which Maltravers may be said to have presided; over the other, Florence. As the former broke up, Ernest was joined by Cleveland.
“My dear cousin,” said Florence, suddenly, and in a whisper, as she turned to Lumley, “your friend is speaking of me—I see it. Go, I implore you, and let me know what he says!”