"Pshaw! theatricals still, Fan?" growled Saville, who had placed a large screen between himself and the window; "no sentiment between friends."
"Out on you, Saville," said Godolphin; "as well might you say no music out of the opera; these verbal prettinesses colour conversation. But your roues are so d——d prosaic, you want us to walk to Vice without a flower by the way."
"Vice indeed!" cried Saville. "I abjure your villanous appellatives. It was in your companionship that I lost my character, and now you turn king's evidence against the poor devil you seduced."
"Humph!" cried Godolphin gaily; "you remind me of the advice of the Spanish hidalgo to a servant: always choose a master with a good memory: for 'if he does not pay, he will at least remember that he owes you.' In future, I shall take care to herd only with those who recollect, after they are finally debauched, all the good advice I gave them beforehand."
"Meanwhile," said the pretty Fanny, with her arch mouth half-full of chicken, "I shall recollect that Mr. Saville drinks his wine without toasts—as being a useless delay."
"Wine," said Mr. Windsor, sententiously, "wine is just the reverse of love. Your old topers are all for coming at once, to the bottle, and your old lovers for ever mumbling the toast."
"See what you have' brought on yourself, Saville, by affecting a joke upon me," said Godolphin. "Come, let us make it up: we fell out with the toast—let us be reconciled by the glass.—Champagne?"
"Ay, anything for a quiet life,—even champagne," said Saville, with a mock air of patience, and dropping his sharp features into a state of the most placid repose. "Your wits are so very severe. Yes, champagne if you please. Fanny, my love," and Saville made a wry face as he put down the scarce-tasted glass; "go on—another joke, if you please; I now find I can bear your satire better, at least, than your wine."
Fanny was all bustle: it is in these things that the actress differs from the lady—there is no quiet in her. "Another bottle of champagne:—what can have happened to this?" Poor Fanny was absolutely pained. Saville enjoyed it, for he always revenged a jest by an impertinence.
"Nay," said Godolphin, "our friend does but joke. Your champagne is excellent, Fanny. Well, Saville, and where is young Greenhough? He is vanished. Report says he was marked down in your company, and has not risen since."