‘Upon my word, I cannot say. There is no earnest on her part. She will rattle on with a poor fellow one night as if she had eyes for no one else, then leave him in the lurch the next. She cares not a rush for any of them, only wants to be run after. As to her followers, some of them are really smitten, I fancy. There was Fitzhugh, but he is an old hand, and can pay her in her own coin, and that sober-faced young Mervyn—it is a bad case with him. In fact, there is a fresh one whenever she goes out—a Jenny Dennison in high life—but the most bitten of all, I take it, is Lord St. Erme.’
‘Lord St. Erme!’ exclaimed both auditors in a breath.
‘Ay. She met him at that breakfast, walked about the gardens with him all the morning, and my mother wrote to my aunt, I believe, that she was booked. Then at this Bryanstone soiree, the next night, Fitzhugh was in the ascendant—poor St. Erme could not so much as gain a look.’
‘So he is in London!’ said Violet. ‘Do tell me what he is like.’
‘Like a German music-master,’ said Arthur. ‘As queer a figure as ever I saw. Keeps his hair parted in the middle, hanging down in long lank rats’ tails, meant to curl, moustache ditto, open collar turned down, black ribbon tie.’
‘Oh! how amazed the Wrangerton people would be!’
‘It is too much to study the picturesque in one’s own person in England!’ said John, laughing. ‘I am sorry he continues that fashion.’
‘So, of course,’ continued Arthur, ‘all the young ladies are raving after him, while he goes mooning after Theodora. How the fair sex must solace itself with abusing “that Miss Martindale!”’
‘I wish he would be a little more sensible,’ said John. ‘He really is capable of something better.’
‘Where did you know him?’