“Buy her!” exclaimed Arkroyd. “Listen to him! Don’t I tell you she’s worth a million?”
“And I’d make her Countess of Dalrymple tomorrow if she hadn’t a penny, and would have me,” said Dalrymple.
“Try her,” said Jack, curtly.
“No use, my dear Savage,” he said, tugging at his incipient fringe of down ruefully. “She won’t have anything to say to yours truly, or to any one of us for that matter. She only smiles when we say pretty things, and shows her teeth at us. Besides, the title wouldn’t tempt her. She’s got one already. Don’t I tell you she’s one of the Earlsley lot? No; we’ve all had a try, even Arkroyd. He even went so far as to get a fellow to write a poem about her in one of the society journals, and signed it ‘A. H.;’ but she told him to his face that she didn’t care for poetry. It was a pretty piece, too, wasn’t it, Ark?”
“First-rate,” said Arkroyd, with as much modesty as if he had written it. “But it was all thrown away on Lady Bell.”
“On whom?” said Jack, waking up again.
“On Lady Bell—Isabel Earlsley is her name. You’re wool-gathering tonight, Jack.”
“Oh, Lady Bell, is it?” said Jack, carelessly. “Go ahead. Anything else?”
“No, that’s all, excepting that I’ll wager a cool thousand to a china orange that you’ll change your tone when you see her, Savage.”
“Perhaps,” said Jack, “but your description doesn’t move me; not much, Ark. You’re not good at that sort of thing. It isn’t in your line. The only things you seem to have remarked are her smile and her teeth.”