“Yes,” said Hazlet, “I am inclined to think so. I should like to see a theatre, I confess.”
He had let slip unintentionally the implied admission that he had never been to a theatre; but when Fitzurse asked in astonishment, “What, have you never been to a theatre?” he merely replied, “Well, I can hardly say I have; at least not for a long time.”
“Oh, then we must all run down to London some night very soon,” said Bruce, “and we’ll go together to the Regent.”
“But I’ve no friend in London, except—except a clergyman or two, who perhaps might object, you know.”
“Oh, never mind the clergymen,” said Bruce; “you shall all come and stay with me at Vyvyan House.”
Here was a triumph!—to go to the celebrated Vyvyan House, and that in company with a lord, and to be a partaker of Bruce’s hospitality! Of course it would be very rude and wrong to refuse so eligible an invitation. How pleasant it would be to remark casually at hall-time, “I’m just going to run down for the Sunday to Vyvyan House with Bruce and Lord Fitzurse!”
“Let me see,” said Bruce, “to-day’s Monday; supposing you come to wine with me on Thursday, and then we’ll see if we can’t manage to get to London from Saturday to Monday.”
“Thursday—I’m afraid I’ve an engagement on Thursday to—”
“To what?” asked Bruce.
The more Hazlet coloured and hung back, the more Bruce, in his agreeable way, pressed to know, till at last Hazlet, unable to escape such genial importunity, reluctantly confessed that it was to a prayer-meeting in a friend’s rooms.