“The new opera broke down, and there is no house open before twelve,” was the hasty reply.
“Is Jemima married, my Lord?”
“No. There 's something or other wrong about the settlements. Who's the foreigner, Haggy?”
“A Pole. Petrolaffsky.”
“No, no not a bit of it. I know him,” said the other, rapidly; then, turning to Mrs. Ricketts, he grew warmly interested in the private life and adventures of the nobility, for all of whom she entertained a most catholic affection.
It was, indeed, a grand field-day for the peerage; even to the “Pensioners” all were under arms. It was a review such as she rarely enjoyed, and certainly she “improved the occasion.” She scattered about her noble personages with the profusion of a child strewing wild-flowers. There were Dukes she had known from their cradles; Marchionesses with whom she had disported in childhood; Earls and Viscounts who had been her earliest playmates; not to speak of a more advanced stage in her history, when all these distinguished individuals were suppliants and suitors. To listen to her, you would swear that she had never played shuttlecock with anything under an Earl, nor trundled a hoop with aught below a Lord in Waiting! Norwood fooled her to the top of her bent. To use his own phrase, “he left her easy hazards, and everything on the balls.” It is needless to state that, in such pleasant converse, she had no memory for the noble Viscount's own transgressions. He might have robbed the Exchequer, or stolen the Crown jewels, for anything that she could recollect! and when, by a seeming accident, he did allude to Newmarket, and lament his most “unlucky book,” she smiled complacently, as though to say that he could afford himself even the luxury of being ruined, and not care for it.
“Florence is pretty much as it used to be, I suppose,” said he; “and one really needs one's friends to rebut and refute foolish rumors, when they get abroad. Now, you 'll oblige me by contradicting, if you ever hear, this absurd story. I neither did win forty thousand from the Duke of Stratton, nor shoot him in a duel for non-payment.” Both these derelictions were invented on the moment. “You 'll hear fifty other similar offences laid to my charge; and I trust to you and the Onslows for the refutation. In fact, it is the duty of one's own class to defend 'their order.'”
Mrs. Ricketts smiled blandly, and bowed, bowed as though her gauze turban had been a coronet, and the tinsel finery jewelled strawberry leaves! To be coupled with the Onslows in the defence of a viscount was a proud thought. What if it might be made a grand reality?
“Apropos of the Onslows, my Lord,” said she, insidiously, “you are very intimate with them. How is it that we have seen so little of each other? Are we not congenial spirits?”
“Good Heavens! I thought you were like sisters. There never were people so made for each other. All your tastes, habits, associations forgive me, if I say your very, antipathies are alike; for you both are unforgiving enemies of vulgarity. Depend upon it, there has been some underhand influence at work. Rely on 't, that evil tongues have kept you apart.” This he said in a whisper, and with a sidelong glance towards where Haggerstone sat at ecarte with the Pole.