After this exchange, Freddy passed into the ballroom, and paused on the threshold, looking about him for his sister.
“Why, there is Freddy Standen!” exclaimed a bedizened matron. “I did not know he was in town again. Dear creature!”
She waggled a hand in a tight kid glove, but failed to attract his attention, this being claimed at that moment by a voice at his elbow. “Hallo, my Tulip! Didn’t you ruralize after all?”
The voice was full of lazy amusement, and it made Freddy turn quickly. It belonged to a tall man whose air and bearing proclaimed the Corinthian. Coat, neckcloth, fobs, seals, and quizzing-glass, all belonged to the Dandy; but the shoulders setting off the coat so admirably, and the powerful thighs, hidden by satin knee-breeches, betrayed the Blood, the out-and-outer not to be beaten on any sporting suit. The face above the starched shirt-points was a handsome one, with a mouth as mocking as its owner’s voice, and a pair of intensely blue eyes which laughed into Freddy’s. The sight of them might have caused Miss Charing’s heart to flutter, but they awoke in Mr. Standen quite different emotions. He opened his mouth to give utterance to a few of the sentiments which had been festering in his bosom for two days, and recollected with a sense of bitter frustration that he was pledged to utter none of them. He shut his mouth again, swallowed, and said merely: “Oh, hallo! You here, coz?”
“Yes, Freddy, yes: I am here, not my wraith! But what are you doing here? I thought to have heard of you at Arnside!”
“Got back today,” said Freddy.
Mr. Westruther’s eyes quizzed him maddeningly. “What a short stay, coz! Didn’t they make you welcome?”
Freddy had always rather admired and looked up to his splendid cousin, but he was not going to put up with this sort of thing. He replied, after only a moment’s rapid consideration: “Oh, toll-loll, but it’s a devilish uncomfortable house, and the old gentleman don’t like me to take my man there. Besides, no need to stay longer!”
“No?” said Mr. Westruther, amusement quivering in his voice.
It was seldom that Mr. Standen, a peace-loving young gentleman, was conscious of a wish to come to blows with his fellow-men, but a wistful desire to land his cousin a facer did for an instant flicker in his mind. Several circumstances rendered the gratification of this impulse ineligible, chief amongst them being the hallowed precincts in which they both stood, and the melancholy certainty that such violence could only lead to his own discomfiture. So instead of yielding to brutish instincts, he fell back upon finesse. Opening his snuff-box, he offered it to Jack, saying meditatively: “Queer start! Thought you were bamming me, and dashed nearly didn’t go. Daresay you didn’t know it, but the old gentleman’s going to leave his fortune to Kit, provided she marries one of us.”