“Lord Claude Willoughby, sir,” said a servant, entering with a card, “desires to know if you 're at home?”
“And won't be denied if you are not,” said his Lordship, entering at the same instant, and saluting Martin with great cordiality.
CHAPTER II. MR. MERL
The French have invented a slang word for a quality that deserves a more recognized epithet, and by the expression chic have designated a certain property by which objects assert their undoubted superiority over all their counterfeits. Thus, your coat from Nugee's, your carriage from Leader's, your bracelet from Storr's, and your bonnet from Madame Palmyre, have all their own peculiar chic, or, in other words, possess a certain invisible, indescribable essence that stamps them as the best of their kind, with an excellence unattainable by imitation, and a charm all their own!
Of all the products in which this magical property insinuates itself, there is not one to which it contributes so much as the man of fashion. He is the very type of chic. To describe him you are driven to a catalogue of negatives, and you only arrive at anything like a resemblance by an enumeration of the different things he is not.
The gentleman who presented himself to Martin at the close of our last chapter was in many respects a good specimen of his order. He had entered the room, believing Martin to be there alone; but no sooner had he perceived another, and that other one not known to him, than all the buoyant gayety of his manner was suddenly toned down into a quiet seriousness; while, taking his friend's arm, he said in a low voice,—“If you 're busy, my dear Martin, don't hesitate for a moment about sending me off; I had not the slightest suspicion there was any one with you.”
“Nor is there,” said Martin, with a supercilious glance at Merl, who was endeavoring in a dozen unsuccessful ways to seem unaware of the new arrival's presence.
“I want to introduce him to you,” said Martin.
“No, no, my dear friend, on no account.”