Sir Arthur was not long in having a delighted recognition with an old, wooden-legged messmate, Captain Ogilvie, who introduced to Marion his "three head of daughters," pretty animated girls; and Agnes hastily seated herself at the tea-table, disappointed beyond measure in the first chapter of her adventures, and half determined already to set about hating the whole party. Though deceived only by her own too vivid anticipations, she felt in some way or other imposed upon, in being unexpectedly introduced to such very third-rate society, and for several minutes she maintained a petulant silence, so very unlike her usual volubility, that she began, before long, to wish for some one with whom to enjoy a laugh at the whole circle of whimsical-looking oddities.
Close beside the seat on which Agnes had accidentally placed herself, she very soon observed an old gentleman considerably past the meridian of life, who nevertheless dressed with very obvious pretensions to youth, wearing a fashionable, well-contrived wig, a perfectly startling set of teeth, and a gouty black velvet shoe. His figure was well built, and he had altogether a look of individual eccentricity peculiar to himself, with an air of supercilious haughtiness, which testified that, like Agnes, he thought himself too good for his company.
"Who can he be?" thought she, finding his eye fixed upon herself with a fastidious look of connoisseurship, such as that with which he might have examined some doubtful copy of a Vandyke or Titian, while an expression of complacent approbation gradually stole into his features. "Probably some eminent artist! He may perhaps ask leave to do my picture for the exhibition!"
Having reached this conclusion, she was almost startled to hear herself addressed by her unknown neighbor, in a consequential, rather patronising voice, and with an air of unembarrassed distinction, while he evidently watched her countenance with the same look of criticism as before, so that she felt certain if there had been a flaw in her teeth, or a single hair disarranged on her head, it could not have escaped his notice. So fastidious a personage seemed almost worth the trouble of pleasing, and Agnes, after replying rather graciously to his first few remarks, became exceedingly surprised to discover that there was a tone of well bred command in his dry, cynical manner, united with the most perfect polish, which both awed and surprised her. His assumption of superiority and importance seemed almost unconscious, but he evidently entertained not the fraction of a doubt that his conversation was a singular honor and an agreeable acquisition to any one on whom he condescended to bestow the slightest attention.
"I have lived here lately at the rate of twenty new acquaintances a day, and am happy this evening in adding another to my usual allowance. One must enter into the humors of a place like Harrowgate, and do at Rome as Rome does," said he, in a somewhat haughty, supercilious tone. "This is the only spot in all the earth where English people attempt the ease and sociability of foreign manners, and we must acknowledge it fits rather awkwardly. Nevertheless, being in my own neighborhood, I make a point every year of lending my countenance for a short time to this house."
Agnes gave an undervaluing glance at her companion, and privately thought his thin, dry countenance, with every vein like whip cord, might well have been dispensed with, but though he appeared to be unpardonably ugly, she prudently sipped her tea in silence, looking somewhat askance at the little consequential gentleman beside her; while he took the opportunity of examining her profile with his keen, observant eye, after which, having apparently satisfied himself that she was worth the honor of being spoken to, he continued, in a hard, croaking voice, like a door grating on its rusty hinges:
"The company here is nearly of the same calibre as you might probably encounter in a Margate hoy, or in a second-class train on the Birmingham railroad."
"Or at Bartholomew fair," added Agnes, determined not to be outdone. "I feel as if we were dining for once at the second table. There should be doorkeepers at Harrowgate to keep out the canaille! I wonder Captain De Crespigny misinformed my brother so much about the society here; but he would have said anything to make us come."
"No one would ever dream, in his wildest moments, of visiting Harrowgate for society. Mere knife-grinders from Sheffield, and country curates," replied her fastidious companion, in a short, abrupt tone. "Are you acquainted with Louis De Crespigny?"
"Yes; everybody who is anybody knows him, and those who do not often pretend they do," replied Agnes, indignant at the easy, almost contemptuous manner in which her companion named one whom she considered as her own peculiar property. "Not to know him would argue ourselves unknown."