Linton caught the words with eagerness, and his dark eyes kindled; for at last were they nearing the territory he wanted to occupy.
“Lady Kilgoff,” said he, slowly, “does not need any aid to appreciate him; she reads him thoroughly, the heartless, selfish, unprincipled spendthrift that he is.”
“She does not, sir,” rejoined the old man, with a loud voice, and a stroke of his cane upon the floor that echoed through the room; “you never were more mistaken in your life. His insufferable puppyism, his reckless effrontery, his underbred familiarity, are precisely the very qualities she is pleased with,—'They are so different,' as she says, 'from the tiresome routine of fashionable manners.'”
“Unquestionably they are, my Lord,” said Linton, with a smile.
“Exactly, sir; they differ as do her Ladyship's own habits from those of every lady in the peerage. I told her so; I begged to set her right on that subject, at least.”
“Your Lordship's refinement is a most severe standard,” said Linton, bowing low.
“It should be an example, sir, as well as a chastisement. Indeed, I believe few would have failed to profit by it.” The air of insolent pride in which he spoke seemed for an instant to have brought back the wonted look to his features, and he sat up, with his lips compressed, and his chin pro-traded, as in his days of yore.
“I would entreat your Lordship to remember,” said Linton, “how few have studied in the same school you have; how few have enjoyed the intimacy of 'the most perfect gentleman of all Europe;' and of that small circle, who is there could have derived the same advantage from the privilege?”
“Your remark is very Just, sir. I owe much—very much—to his Royal Highness.”
The tone of humility in which he said this was a high treat to the sardonic spirit of his listener.