“Well, so I should; but somehow, most unaccountably, you'll say, I don't think I made any impression. To be sure, I never went vigorously to work: I couldn't get over my scruples of making up to a girl who may have a large fortune, while I myself am so confoundedly out at the elbows; the thing would look badly, to say the least of it; and so, when I did think I was making a little running, I only 'held in' the faster, and at length gave up the race. You are the man, Hinton. Your chances, I should say—”
“Ah, I don't know.”
Just at this moment the door opened, and Lord Dudley de Vere entered, dressed in coloured clothes, cut in the most foppish style of the day, and with his hands stuck negligently behind in his coat-pockets. He threw himself affectedly into a chair, and eyed us both without speaking.
“I say, messieurs, Rooney or not Rooney? that's the question. Do we accept this invitation for Friday?”
“I do, for one,” said I, somewhat haughtily.
“Can't be, my boy,” said O'Grady; “the thing is most unlucky: they have a dinner at court that same day; our names are all on the list; and thus we lose the Rooneys, which, from all I hear, is a very serious loss indeed. Daley, Barrington, Harry Martin, and half a dozen others, the first fellows of the day, are all to be there.”
“What a deal they will talk,” yawned out Lord Dudley. “I feel rather happy to have escaped it. There's no saying a word to the woman beside you, as long as those confounded fellows keep up a roaring fire of what they think wit. What an idea! to be sure; there is not a man among them that can tell you the odds upon the Derby, nor what year there was a dead heat for the St. Léger. That little girl the Rooneys have got is very pretty, I must confess; but I see what they are at: won't do, though. Ha! O'Grady, you know what I mean?”
“Faith, I am very stupid this morning; can't say that I do.”
“Not see it! It is a hollow thing; but perhaps you are in the scheme too. There, you needn't look angry; I only meant it in joke—ha! ha! ha! I say, Hinton, do you take care of yourself: Englishers have no chance here; and when they find it won't do with me, they'll take you in training.”
“Anything for a pis-aller” said O'Grady, sarcastically; “but let us not forget there is a levee to-day, and it is already past twelve o'clock.”