“I am to understand, then, that you don’t choose to interest yourself in his affairs, sir?”
“There is not the least likelihood of his attending to me if I did, Miss Taverner.”
“He could be made to attend to you.”
“Do not be alarmed, Miss Taverner. When I see the need of making him attend to me I shall do so, beyond all possibility of being ignored.”
She was not satisfied, but it was obviously of no use to urge him further. She took her leave of him. He escorted her to her phaeton, and was about to go back into the house when he heard himself hailed by a couple of horsemen, who chanced at that moment to be trotting by. One was Lord Alvanley, whose round, smiling face was as usual slightly powdered with the snuff that lingered on his rather fat cheeks; the other was Colonel Hanger, a much older man of very rakish mien.
It was he who had hailed Worth. “Hola, Worth, so that’s the heiress, hey? Devilish fine girl!” he cried out as Miss Taverner’s phaeton disappeared down Holies Street. “Eighty thousand, ain’t it? Lucky dog, hey? Making a match of it, hey?”
“You’re so crude, Colonel,” complained Alvanley.
“Ay, plain Georgy Hanger, that’s me. Take care some brave boy don’t snatch the filly up from under your nose, Julian!”
“I will,” promised the Earl, quite unmoved by this raillery.
The Colonel dug the butt end of his riding-whip at Lord Alvanley. “There’s William here, for instance. Now, what d’ye say, William? They do tell me there’s more to it than the eighty thousand if that young brother were to die. Ain’t that so, Julian?”