He turned his head, and gave her back a look as frank as her own. “Miss Stanton-Lacy, you are plainly aware of my circumstances. Will you tell me in what case I stand, and who is the Adonis at present monopolizing Miss Rivenhall?”
“He is Augustus Fawnhope, and he is a poet.”
“That has an ominous ring,” he said lightly. “I know the family, of course, but I think I have not previously encountered this sprig.”
“Very likely you might not, for he was used to be with Sir Charles Stuart, in Brussels. Lord Charlbury, you look to me like a sensible man!”
“I had rather I had a head like a Greek coin,” he remarked ruefully.
“You must understand,” said Sophy, disregarding this frivolity, “that half the young ladies in London are in love with Mr. Fawnhope.”
“I can readily believe it, and I grudge him only one of his conquests.”
She would have replied, but they were interrupted. Lord Ombersley, who had gone away after dinner, now reappeared, accompanied by an elderly and immensely corpulent man in whom no one had the least difficulty in recognizing a member of the Royal Family. He was, in fact, the Duke of York, that one of Farmer George’s sons who most nearly resembled him. He had the same protuberant blue eye, and beaky nose, the same puffy cheeks, and pouting mouth, but he was a much larger man than his father. He appeared to be in imminent danger of bursting out of his tightly stretched pantaloons; he wheezed when he spoke, but he was plainly a genial prince, ready to be pleased, standing on very little ceremony, and chatting affably to anyone who was presented to him. Both Cecilia and Sophy had this honor. His Royal Highness’s appreciation of Cecilia’s beauty was quite as broadly expressed as Mr. Wraxton’s had been, and no one could doubt that had he met her in some less public spot it would not have been many minutes before the ducal arm would have been round her waist. Sophy aroused no such amorous tendency ,in him, but he talked very jovially to her, asked her how her father did, and opined, with a loud laugh, that by this time Sir Horace was enjoying himself among all the Brazilian beauties, the dog that he was! After that, he exchanged greetings with several friends, circulated about the room for a while, and finally withdrew to the library with his host and two other of his intimates for a rubber of whist.
Cecilia, escaping from the Royal presence with burning cheeks (for she hated to be the target of fulsome compliments), was intercepted by Mr. Fawnhope, who said with great simplicity, “You are more beautiful tonight than I had thought possible!”
“Oh, do not!” she exclaimed involuntarily. “How insufferably hot it is in this room!”