"Decidedly uncivil, and even more than that."
"What do you mean! I insist on knowing what you mean by more."
"They're at it again," says Mr. Browne, at this auspicious moment, waving his hand in an airy fashion in the direction of our two belligerents.
Mr. Browne is a person who can always say and do what he likes for several reasons, the principal being that nobody pays the smallest attention to either his sayings or doings. Everybody likes Dicky, and Dicky, as a rule, likes everybody. He has a father and a home somewhere, but where (especially with regard to the former), is vague.
The home, certainly, is kept up for nobody except the servants, as neither Dicky nor his father ever put in an appearance there. The latter (who has never yet mastered the fact that he is growing old), spends all his time in the favorite window of his Club in Pall Mall, with his nose pressed against the pane and his attention irrevocably fixed upon the passers-by on the other side of the way. This is his sole occupation from morning till night; unless one can take notice of a dismal and most diabolical tattoo that at unfortunate moments he is in the habit of inflicting upon the window, and the nerves of the other occupants of the room in which he may be.
Dicky puts in most of his time at Blount Hall. Indeed, it has grown to be a matter of speculation with the Blount's whether in the event of his marriage he will not elect to bring his bride also to stay with them for good and all! They have even gone so far as to hope he will marry a nice girl, and one whom they can receive in the spirit of love.
"I don't think they really ever quite enjoy themselves, until they are on the verge of bloodshed," says Sir Mark, in answer to Dicky's remark. "They are the very oddest pair I ever met."
All this is said quite out loud, but so promising is the quarrel by this time, that neither Dulce nor Roger hear one word of it.
"You do it on purpose," Dulce is saying in a tone in which tears and extreme wrath fight for mastery, "You torment me from morning till night. You are both rude and unkind to me. And now—now—what is it you have just said?"
"What have I said?" asks Roger, who is plainly frightened.