"I see the count is abroad again," observed the stranger, following with his eyes one of the horsemen in "the drive." "Poor fellow! he has been playing at hide-and-seek for a long time."
"Indeed! and wherefore?" exclaimed Richard.
"What! are you a stranger in London, sir?" cried the well-dressed gentleman, transferring his eyes from the horseman to Markham's countenance, on which they were fixed with an expression of surprise and interest.
"Very nearly so, although a resident in its immediate vicinity all my life;" and, with the natural ingenuousness of youth, Richard immediately communicated his entire history, from beginning to end, to his new acquaintance. Of a surety there was not much to relate; but the stranger succeeded in finding out who the young man was, under what circumstances he was now living, and the amount of his present and future resources.
"Of course you mean to see life?" said the stranger.
"Certainly. I have already studied the great world by the means of books."
"But of course you know that there is nothing like experience."
"I can understand how experience is necessary to a man who is anxious to make a fortune, but not to him who has already got one."
"Oh, decidedly! It is frequently more difficult to keep a fortune than it was to obtain one."
"How—if I do not speculate?"