“They seem to m-me very stupid and—yes, unkind!” declared Horatia.
“I was afraid they might,” said Rule.
“And,” said Horatia with spirit, “it is no g-good telling me I m-mustn’t know Lord L-Lethbridge, because I shall!”
“Would it be any good, I wonder, if I were to request you—quite mildly, you understand—not to make a friend of Lethbridge?”
“No,” said Horatia. “I l-like him, and I won’t be ruled by odious p-prejudice.”
“Then if you have finished your dinner, my love, let us start for the opera,” said Rule tranquilly.
Horatia got up from the table feeling that the wind had been taken out of her sails.
The work being performed at the Italian Opera House, of which his lordship was one of the patrons, was Iphiginie en Aulide, a composition that had enjoyed a considerable success in Paris, where it was first produced. The Earl and Countess of Rule arrived midway through the first act, and took their seats in one of the green boxes. The house was a blaze of light, and crowded with persons of fashion who, while having no particular taste for music, all flocked to the King’s Theatre, some with the mere intention of being in the mode, others for the purpose of displaying expensive toilets, and a few, like the Earl of March, who sat with his glass levelled at the stage, in the hope of discovering some new dancer of surpassing attractions. Amongst this frippery throng were also to be seen the virtuosi, of whom Mr Walpole, comfortably ensconced in Lady Hervey’s box, was of the most notable. In the pit a number of young gentlemen congregated, who spent the greater part of their time in ogling the ladies in the boxes. The Macaronis were represented by Mr Fox, looking heavy-eyed, as well he might, having sat till three in the afternoon playing hazard at Almack’s; by my Lord Carlisle, whose round youthful countenance was astonishingly embellished by a patch cut in the form of a cabriolet; and of course by Mr Crosby Drelincourt, with a huge nosegay stuck in his coat, and a spy-glass set in the head of his long cane. The Macaronis, mincing, simpering, sniffing at crystal scent-bottles, formed a startling contrast to the Bucks, the young sparks who, in defiance of their affected contemporaries, had flown to another extreme of fashion. No extravagance of costume distinguished these gentlemen, unless a studied slovenliness could be called such, and their amusements were of a violent nature, quite at variance with your true Macaroni’s notions of entertainment. These Bloods were to be found at any prizefight, or cock-fight, and when these diversions palled could always while away an evening in masquerading abroad in the guise of foot-pads, to the terror of all honest townsfolk. Lord Winwood, who was engrossed throughout the first act of the opera in a heated argument respecting the chances of his pet bruiser, the Fairy, against Mr Farnaby’s protege, the Bloomsbury Tiger, at Broughton’s Amphitheatre next evening, was himself something of a Blood, and had spent the previous night in the Roundhouse, having been moved to join a party of light-hearted gentlemen at the sport of Boxing the Watch. As a result of thisstrenuous pastime his lordshiphad an interesting bruise over one eye, a circumstance that induced Mr Drelincourt to utter a squeak of horror on sight of him.
When the curtain presently fell on the first act the real business of the evening might be said to begin. Ladies beckoned from boxes, gentlemen in the pit went to pay their court to them, and a positive buzz of conversation arose.
Rule’s box was very soon full of Horatia’s friends, and his lordship, ousted from his wife’s side by the ardent Mr Dash-wood, suppressed a yawn and strolled away in search of more congenial company. He was presently to be seen in the parterre, chuckling at something Mr Selwyn seemed to have sighed wearily into his ear, and just as he was about to move towards a group of men who had hailed him, he chanced to look up at the boxes, and saw something that apparently made him change his mind. Three minutes later he entered Lady Massey’s box.