“Mind you are careful about keeping our connection with the club secret,” returned D’Almayne, almost in a whisper; “we are not in Paris, remember; and the slightest suspicion that we played, would be fatal to your hopes of inducing men of capital to join the other affair.”
“Do not fear, mon cher; I know my game,” was the reply. As he spoke, his eye fell upon the Coverdale party, and hastily indicating Lord Alfred Courtland to his companion, he continued, “Do you see that stripling? he was pointed out to me last night as a pigeon worth plucking, and easily handled; he is a young milor, very soft, and what you call ‘green.’ You must get introduced, and bring him to ‘the club.’”
“The boy is not of age yet,” returned D’Almayne, “and English fathers never pay gambling debts; so you must not hope for large gains from him.”
“He can sign bills and post-obits I presume,” rejoined his companion, with a sneering laugh; “but the people he is with are regarding you as if they were of your acquaintance—is it so?”
“Decidedly,” was the reply. “I will effect the introduction you desire at once, but as soon as it is over you must find an opportunity of withdrawing; I will join the party, feel my way cautiously, and you shall see Milor Courtland’s childish face in J———— Street before a fortnight has passed. Allons, mon cher.”
Having offered two fingers to Coverdale, and three to his wife, D’Almayne glanced towards Lord Alfred with a supercilious look, which seemed to express, “I perceive you, but on account of your extreme youth and inexperience, am wholly indifferent to the fact of your existence;” at least so his lordship interpreted it, and was immediately seized with an eager desire to know the man who could thus afford to look down on him.
“Introduce me to your friend, will you, Coverdale?” he said; “I must get him to give me a few lessons in dress and deportment; he really is a second Brummell.”
“He really is a conceited, empty-headed puppy,” returned Coverdale, sotto voce, “and it’s little good you’ll learn of a jackanapes like that; but I suppose if I didn’t introduce you, somebody else would—so come along.” Then placing his hand on his shoulder, and urging him forward, he continued—“D’Almayne, here’s my friend, Lord Alfred Courtland, wishes to be introduced to you: he thinks it his duty to know every well-dressed man in London, and you’re so facile princeps in that line—so transcendently got up—that he’s dying to ask your tailor’s address, and the length of tick he allows.”
“You’re so obliging as to laugh at me, Mr. Coverdale, because I cannot reconcile myself to your English Schneiders, and still patronise Blin et Fils, in that paradise of tailors, Paris; but—ar—really you are uncivilised in this particular, and require reform in your coats more than in your constitution, which, glorious as you consider it, you are always altering. Does not Lord Alfred Courtland agree with me?” And as he made this appeal, Horace D’Almayne simpered, to show his white teeth, stroked his moustache, and awaited a reply.
Ere Lord Alfred had found words to imply his admiration of Horace’s taste, without paying him an actual broad and un-mistakeable compliment, Harry put his ideas to flight, by exclaiming—