“I’m some twelve or fifteen years your senior,” said the other, and a slight twitching of the mouth showed a certain irritation as he spoke; “a few years separates men as essentially as a whole hemisphere.”
“I suppose so.”
“Town life, too, moves in such a routine, that when a man comes to my age, he no more makes a new acquaintance than he acquires a new sensation.”
“And, stranger still,” continued Dolly, with that persistence that pertains to ill breeding, “I never so much as heard of you.”
“I feel ashamed of my obscurity!” said Grenfell, and his pale cheek became mottled with red.
“No, it ain’t that. I meant only to say that I never heard of any Grenfells but the Piccadilly fellows, Cox and Grenfells! ‘None genuine but signed by us.’ Ha, ha, ha!” and Dolly laughed at his drollery, and the other joined in the mirth quite sufficiently not to attract any especial attention. “Not relatives, I presume?” added Dolly, still laughing.
“Delighted if they were!” said Grenfell, with a sickly smile. “I don’t think the dividends would smell of curry powder!”
“That’s what Cecil St. John says: ‘Let the greatest scoundrel in England only leave me his money, and I’ll honour his memory.’ Do you know St. John?”
“One of my most intimate friends.”
“I am dying to know him! Grog Davis says he’s the only man that ever took the wind out of his sails.”