“Well, they’ve gone out together to flaunt their monstrous connection!”
“You speak,” she laughed, “as if it were too gross—I They’re surely coming back?”
“Back to you, if you like—but not to me.”
“Ah, what are you and I,” she tenderly argued, “but one and the same quantity? And though you may not as yet absolutely rejoice in—well, whatever they’re doing,” she cheerfully added, “you’ll get beautifully used to it.”
“That’s just what I’m afraid of—what such horrid matters make of one!”
“At the worst then, you see”—she maintained her optimism—“the recipient of royal attentions!”
“Oh,” said her companion, whom his honour seemed to leave comparatively cold, “it’s simply as if the gracious Personage were coming to condole!”
Impatient of the lapse of time, in any case, she assured herself again of the hour. “Well, if he only does come!”
“John—the wretch!” Lord Theign returned—“will take care of that: he has nailed him and will bring him.”
“What was it then,” his friend found occasion in the particular tone of this reference to demand, “what was it that, when you sent him off, John spoke of you in Bond Street as specifically intending?”