Beecher turned to gaze at the man, who answered without more semblance of deference, and now, for the first time, their eyes met. It was, evidently, Spicer's game, by a bold assertion of former intimacy, to place their future intercourse on its old footing; and just as equally decided was Beecher that no traditions of the past should rise up and obtrude themselves on the present, and so he threw into this quiet, steady stare an amount of haughty resolution, before which Spicer quailed and struck his flag.
“Perhaps I should say three hours, my Lord,” added Spicer, flurriedly; and Beecher turned away with a slight curl on his lip, as though to say, “The conflict was not a very long one.” Spicer marked the expression, and vowed vengeance for it.
“I thought you 'd have got here two or three days before,” said Beecher, carelessly.
“Vetturino travelling is not like extra-post, my Lord,” said Spicer, fawningly. “You could cover your hundred miles between breakfast and a late dinner, while we thought ourselves wonderful to get over forty from sunrise to midnight.”
“That's true,” yawned out Beecher; “vetturino work must be detestable.”
“No man could give you a better catalogue of its grievances than your father-in-law, my Lord; he has had a long experience of them. I remember, one winter, we started from Brussels in the deep snow,—there was Baring, Hope, Fisk, Grog, and myself.”
“I don't care to hear your adventures; and it would be just as agreeable to me were you to call my relative Captain Davis, as to speak of him by a vulgar nickname.”
“Faith, my Lord, I did n't mean it. It slipped out quite unconsciously, Just as it did awhile ago,—far more awkwardly, by the bye,—when I was talking to Lady Lacking-ton. The dowager, I mean.”
“And what occasion, sir, had you to refer to Captain Davis in her company?” asked Beecher, fiercely.
“She asked me plumply, my Lord, what was her Ladyship's name, what family she came of, who her connections were, and I told her that I never heard of any of them, except her father, popularly known as Grog Davis,—a man that every one on the turf was acquainted with.”