“I was not aware that Miss Trevanion was out of town.”
“Only for a few days, and then she and Lady Ellinor join Trevanion in the North,—you know he is with Lord N—, settling measures on which—But, alas! they consult me now on those matters,—force their secrets on me. I have, Heaven knows how many votes! Poor me! Upon my word, if Lady Ellinor was a widow, I should certainly make up to her: very clever woman, nothing bores her.” (The marquis yawned,—Sir Sedley Beaudesert never yawned.) “Trevanion has provided for his Scotch secretary, and is about to get a place in the Foreign Office for that young fellow Gower, whom, between you and me, I don’t like. But he has bewitched Trevanion!”
“What sort of a person is this Mr. Gower? I remember you said that he was clever and good-looking.”
“He is both; but it is not the cleverness of youth,—he is as hard and sarcastic as if he had been cheated fifty times, and jilted a hundred! Neither are his good looks that letter of recommendation which a handsome face is said to be. He has an expression of countenance very much like that of Lord Hertford’s pet bloodhound when a stranger comes into the room. Very sleek, handsome dog the bloodhound is certainly,—well-mannered, and I dare say exceedingly tame; but still you have but to look at the corner of the eye to know that it is only the habit of the drawing-room that suppresses the creature’s constitutional tendency to seize you by the throat, instead of giving you a paw. Still, this Mr. Gower has a very striking head,—something about it Moorish or Spanish, like a picture by Murillo—I half suspect that he is less a Gower than a gypsy!”
“What!”—I cried, as I listened with rapt and breathless attention to this description. “He is then very dark, with high, narrow forehead, features slightly aquiline, but very delicate, and teeth so dazzling that the whole face seems to sparkle when he smiles,—though it is only the lip that smiles, not the eye.”
“Exactly as you say; you have seen him, then?”
“Why, I am not sure, since you say his name is Gower.”
“He says his name is Gower,” returned Lord Castleton, dryly, as he inhaled the Beaudesert mixture.
“And where is he now,—with Mr. Trevanion?”
“Yes, I believe so. Ah! here we are—Fudge & Fidget! But perhaps,” added Lord Castleton, with a gleam of hope in his blue eye,—“perhaps they are not at home!”