"Oh! You are always quizzing me," answered Lord Fife, without answering my question.
Just as Amy, Luttrell and myself were seated in the carriage, Nugent came puffing up to it, whispered in my ear, "Beg ten thousand pardons, Harriette; but want to oblige a lady here, and am going to call on another. You will infinitely oblige me by setting her down. I know I take a liberty; but you may take two with me some other time in return."
It was easy to guess the style of lady who would be at the opera alone, trusting to chance or Nugent for a conveyance.
"Agreed," answered I, "so that I may affect not to understand a word of French."
"Certainly," said Nugent, handing into my carriage a very gaily dressed young lady, whom I set down where he directed without exchanging a single word with her.
As one always requires a good supper after dining at Amy's expense, I accepted Luttrell's invitation to eat cold chicken and drink champagne. During our supper, Amy was entertaining us with the delightful qualities of one Mr. Grefule, a Swiss banker residing at Paris, whom I thought the most absurd, affected, mean, contemptible blockhead I had ever met with. It is true I knew but little about him and cared less, and may have been mistaken in all but his stinginess, of which I had an opportunity of judging, having heard that subject discussed by those who knew him well.
"You surely must be in love with his large property?" said I to Amy.
"In love with his property! Why is he not an Adonis?"
Amy's Adonis is a short, thick man, almost a mulatto, with little purblind eyes and straight, coarse, black hair; and his age at least five and forty.