"Are you sure you have not mistaken me for the sun?"
"The influence of both at once are, at this moment, almost too much for me," Petersham answered, "and if you are the sort of spirited, independent, fine creature I have always heard you were, you will allow me to accompany you home immediately, as fast as our horses can drive us."
"Just the sort of thing I should like best!" said I, "if—" and I paused.
"If what?"
"If I happened to have a fancy for you; but, frankly, I have none!"
"Upon your honour and word, you do not like me?" Petersham asked, with evident astonishment.
"No, really," said I, "although you are very handsome; but you are not my style of man. I am not alluding to your foppery; a young man must ape something, and a polite fop is infinitely better than the heavy swaggering dragoon style, which I abhor."
"What is it you dislike about me, then?" Petersham asked.
"Lord bless us, how can you ask such stupid questions, Lord Petersham?" I inquired, somewhat impatiently, and then wished him a good morning.
To return to the young man we left staring at me from the back seat of an upper box, and whom I believed could be no other person than the Honourable Leicester Stanhope—it was only between the acts that I recollected he was behind me, being tolerably accustomed to this sort of thing.