“It is all jealousy, Poodle!” Mr. Beaumaris said soothingly. “The hatred of the vulgar for the aristocrat! I think we had better part, don’t you?”
Mr. Byng gave an angry snort, and drove off. Mr. Beaumaris released Ulysses, who shook himself, sighed his satisfaction, and looked up for approbation. “Yes, you will, I perceive, ruin me yet,” said Mr. Beaumaris severely. “If I am any judge of the matter, you picked your language up in the back-slums, and have probably been the associate of dustmen, coal-heavers, bruisers, and other such low persons! You are quite unfit for polite circles.”
Ulysses lolled his tongue out, and grinned cheerfully.
“At the same time,” said Mr. Beaumaris, relenting, “I daresay you would have made mincemeat of the creature, and I must own that I am not entirely out of sympathy with you. But poor Poodle will certainly cut me for a week at least.”
However, at the end of five days Mr. Byng unbent, adopting a tolerant attitude towards Ulysses. It had been borne in upon him that to drive past the Nonpareil’s curricle, staring rigidly ahead, was provocative of just the amusement amongst his acquaintances which he particularly wished to discourage.
Mr. Beaumaris and Miss Tallant met again in the dazzling splendour of the Circular Room at Carlton House, on the night of the Regent’s Dress-party. Arabella was so much impressed by the elegance of the sky-blue draperies, and the almost intolerable glare of a huge cut-glass chandelier, reflected, with its myriads of candles, in four large pierglasses, that she momentarily forgot her last meeting with Mr. Beaumaris, and greeted him by saying impulsively: “How do you do? I have never seen anything like it in my life! Each room is more magnificent than the last!”
He smiled, “Ah, but have you yet penetrated to the Conservatory, Miss Tallant? Our Royal host’s chef d’oeuvre, believe me! Let me take you there!”
By this time she had recollected under what I circumstances they had parted, so short a time previously, and her colour had risen. Many tears had been shed over the unhappy circumstance which had made it impossible for her to accept Mr. Beaumaris’s suit, and it had required all the excitement of a party at Carlton House to make her forget for one evening that she was the most miserable girl alive. She hesitated now, but Lady Bridlington was nodding and beaming, so she placed her hand on Mr. Beaumaris’s arm, and went with him through a bewildering number of apartments, all full of people, up the grand stairway, and through several saloons and antechambers. In the intervals of bowing to acquaintances, and occasionally exchanging a word of greeting, Mr. Beaumaris entertained her with an account of Ulysses’ quarrel with Mr. Byng’s poodle, and this made her laugh so much that agood deal of her constraint vanished. The Conservatory made her open her eyes very wide indeed, as well it might. Mr. Beaumaris watched her, a look of amusement in his face, while she gazed silently round the extraordinary structure. Finally, she drew a breath, and uttered one of her unexpectedly candid remarks. “Well, I don’t know why he should call it a Conservatory, for it is a great deal more like a cathedral, and a very bad one too!” she said.
He was delighted. “I thought you would be pleased with it,” he said, with deceptive gravity.
“I am not at all pleased with it,” replied Arabella severely. “Why is there a veil over that statue?”