"Curiosity?"
"Yes. I was wondering in my mind why you are here to-night, and why you have brought mine estimable if somewhat weak-minded cousin with you here, in the very midst of the most evil-reputed crowd in London?"
"Oh!" protested Sir John gallantly, "'tis not the most evil-reputed crowd by any means. We, who are accustomed to the profligate life of a gentleman, look over leniently on the innocent if somewhat flashy debaucheries of these pleasure-lovers here."
"Yet are we no mere pleasure lovers, Sir John," said Michael with a sudden air of seriousness which contrasted strangely with his flushed face and his slovenly and ragged attire. "You see here before you the very scum of humanity, the bits of flotsam and jetsam which the tide of fortune throws upon the shores of life; tattered rags of manhood, shattered lives, disappointed hopes! This room is full of these wreckages, like morsels of poisonous seaweed or of empty shells that litter the earth and make it foul with their noisome putrefaction. Elegant gentlemen like you and my fair cousin here should not join in this mêlée wherein crime falls against crime, and moral foulness pollutes the air. We are rogues here, sir, all of us," he added bringing his hand open-palmed crashing down upon the table, "rogues that have long ago ceased to blush, rogues that shrink neither before crime nor before shame. Rogues! rogues! all of us—not born so remember, but made rogues because of some one else's crime, some one else's shame!—but damned rogues for all that!"
He drank another bumper full of spiced wine! He had spoken loudly and hoarsely with wrathful eyes gazing straight ahead before him, as if striving through the foul smoke and vitiated air of this den of thieves to perceive that nook in a Kentish village, where in a tumble-down, miserable cottage, a woman who should have been Countess of Stowmaries was often on her knees scrubbing the tiled floors.
But Stowmaries's laugh, loud and almost malignant, broke the trend of Michael's thoughts.
"Ay, ay! Well said!" he shouted as loudly, as hilariously as had done the others. "Well said, Michael, for you at least, an rumour doth not lie, are a damned rogue for all that!"
"Nay! Nay!" interposed Ayloffe with mild amiability, "you do your cousin Michael a grave injustice. I know that my lord of Rochester would back me up in what I say. All these gentlemen here are rogues but in name. They shout and they sing, they parade the streets and make merry, but they are, of a truth, of a right good sort, and if only a pleasing turn of fortune came their way, they would all become peaceful citizens in a trice and forswear all their deeds of profligacy, of which they are often cordially ashamed."
'Twas Michael's turn to laugh. He threw back his head so that the muscles of his neck stood out like cords, and he laughed loudly and immoderately, with a laugh that had absolutely no mirth in it.
"Ashamed of our roguery," he said at last, when that outburst had ceased and he was once more learning forward across the table with dark, glowing eyes wandering from one flushed face to another. "Hark at him, gentlemen! Sir John Ayloffe here would make saints of us! Hark ye, sir," he continued bringing his excited face close to that of Sir John, "I for one delight in mine own roguery. I am what I am, do you hear? what the buffetings of Fate and the injustice of man have made me. The more my mealy-mouthed cousin here exults in his courtliness and in his honour, the more do I glory in mine own disgrace. If that is honour," he said pointing with a trembling hand at Stowmaries who despite his brave attire cut but a sorry figure at the present moment, for he felt supremely ill at ease, "then am I content to be a rogue. The greater the villainy, the prouder am I to accomplish it, and if I am to go to Hell for it, then let my damnation be on the head of those who have driven me thither."