‘I will back the Duke of Brecon against him,’ said one of his companions. ‘He raved about her at White’s yesterday.’
‘Hem!’
‘The end is not so near as all that,’ said a third wassailer.
‘I do not know that,’ said Hugo Bohun. ‘It is a family that marries off quickly. If a fellow is obliged to marry, he always likes to marry one of them.’
‘What of this new star?’ said his friend, and he mentioned Lothair.
‘Oh! he is too young; not launched. Besides he is going to turn Catholic, and I doubt whether that would do in that quarter.’
‘But he has a greater fortune than any of them.’
‘Immense! A man I know, who knows another man——’ and then he began a long statistical story about Lothair’s resources.
‘Have you got any room here, Hugo?’ drawled out Lord St. Aldegonde.
‘Plenty, and here is my chair.’