RICCABOCCA.—“All ladies are. How naturally that warrior makes his desperate cut at the runaway!”
MRS. DALE.—“She is not what is called regularly handsome, but she has something very winning.”
RICCABOCCA (with a smile).—“So winning, that it is strange she is not won. That gray mare in the foreground stands out very boldly!”
MRS. DALE (distrusting the smile of Riccabocca, and throwing in a more effective grape-charge).—“Not won yet; and it is strange! she will have a very pretty fortune.”
RICCABOCCA.—“Ah!”
MRS. DALE. “Six thousand pounds, I dare say,—certainly four.”
RICCABOCCA (suppressing a sigh, and with his wonted address).—“If Mrs. Dale were still single, she would never need a friend to say what her portion might be; but Miss Jemima is so good that I am quite sure it is not Miss Jemima’s fault that she is still—Miss Jemima!”
The foreigner slipped away as he spoke, and sat himself down beside the whist-players.
Mrs. Dale was disappointed, but certainly not offended. “It would be such a good thing for both,” muttered she, almost inaudibly.
“Giacomo,” said Riccabocca, as he was undressing that night in the large, comfortable, well-carpeted English bedroom, with that great English four-posted bed in the recess which seems made to shame folks out of single blessedness, “Giacomo, I have had this evening the offer of probably L6000, certainly of four thousand.”