With the good-humoured Struggles for a partner and so much of his brains as the claret had left untouched, filled with the image of a dark-eyed young person in white muslin, it was Mr. Sawyer’s lot to do battle at the noble game of whist, against two no less formidable antagonists than Savage and Parson Dove, both first-rate performers even after dinner.
To be successful at this pastime, a man’s whole intellects should be engrossed by the cards, and this was by no means the case with our friend. In spite of his partner’s good-humoured entreaties to “pay attention,” he could not prevent his thoughts, and sometimes his eyes, from wandering to the sofa near the fire-place. He had never liked Brush quite as well as the rest of his companions, but on the present occasion he could not refrain from wishing him even in a hotter place than that which he had selected. The Major with devoted gallantry, having placed his back to a fire that would have roasted an ox, was holding forth in his most agreeable manner to Mrs. Merrywether and the laughing Cissy. Crasher, in the easiest of arm-chairs, was helping Mrs. Dove to make paper lights, and revolving in his own mind, while he listened amiably to the continuous discourse of his hostess, whether he wouldn’t pole up Marathon a little shorter going home, and try the more direct road against which the Reverend was in the habit of warning his guests. They would save a mile, in distance, he thought, and there was sure to be more light on their return. The Honourable had a sort of vague idea, that there was always a moon about one or two o’clock.
Suddenly an explosion of laughter from the window, under cover of which the unconscious Sawyer revoked, and was immediately found out, startled the whole assembly. “How absurd you are!” exclaimed that noisy dame, in answer to some proposition of the Major’s which appeared highly amusing to the ladies on the sofa. “Now I appeal to ‘Cissy’ whether she agrees with you. Girls are the best judges. Cissy! do you think the Major as invincible as he says he is?”
Mr. Sawyer, on thorns to hear the answer, trumped his partner’s best with considerable emphasis, and lost another trick.
“It’s not fair to ask me,” answered Miss Dove, laughing heartily. “He knows I admire him immensely; I’ve always told him so!” and the three went on with their conversation, which, I am bound to say, was great nonsense, but amused them considerably all the same.
After this, Struggles thought the sooner they left off whist the better. There is scarcely a mistake, of which that intricate game admits, into which Mr. Sawyer did not rush, so to speak, as if with a suicidal purpose. “Hang the fellow!” thought Struggles, eyeing his partner with a kind of good-humoured astonishment: “if he was drunk, one could understand it; never saw such a thing! never saw such cards so thrown away! and yet the man’s no fool. Oh! he must be drunk! must be! but carries his liquor with discretion!” and thereupon Struggles found himself looking upon his partner’s features with a more indulgent eye, and contemplating his own losses with the resignation of a man who suffers in a good cause.
Three rubbers! one of them a bumper! How many points, for the sake of my hero, I am ashamed to confess. It was indeed, as Struggles pathetically remarked, “about the worst night he’d ever had, since he left Westminster.”
Yet there was balm in Gilead, after all. The Honourable, resisting all entreaties to stay and have some supper, rang to order his phaeton round, and went fast asleep in his arm-chair after the exertion. Their host, exhilarated by his winnings, and in high good-humour, began about the steeple-chase; and the ladies, who, I am convinced, patronise these exhibitions chiefly on account of the silk jackets, and connect them remotely in their own minds with a fancy dress ball, began to betray great curiosity on the subject of the “colours of the riders,” “gorge de pigeon,” the Major’s selected hue, having decidedly the call. During the discussion which so favourite a topic was sure to engender, it came out, somehow, that Mr. Sawyer was going to take part in the hazardous amusement—an announcement which he made darkly, and with a sidelong glance at Cissy, that seemed to say he would rather break his neck than not. The young lady having teased him enough, was quite ready to meet him halfway. “Isn’t it very dangerous?” said she, with clasped hands and a look of affectionate interest. “Are you really going to ride, Mr. Sawyer? Oh! how I hope you’ll win!” And down went the eyelashes once more.
After that, what cared Mr. Sawyer for rubbers, bumpers, points and losses? Everything was couleur de rose again. Whilst the others gathered round the wine-and-water tray, he sank down on the sofa by her side, and for a delicious five minutes had his enslaver all to himself. In that brief period, he managed to find out her favourite colour, and promised to adopt it in the coming steeple-chase. A few stars were twinkling dimly through the cloudy atmosphere when he lit his cigar and got into the phaeton by the Honourable’s side. Why couldn’t Mr. Sawyer look at them without thinking of Cissy Dove?