“George is a dooced dangerous fellow,” mused the altruist, on the way to his club. “He is a big-wig in his second-rate sort of way, with his Garter and his money. He is the sort of fellow to demoralize a woman. And if he wants a penniless parson’s daughter he can afford to marry her. Unless that old heathen is lying—and she is capable of anything—I shall have to keep my eye on the target. As long as there is good manhood left in the country, that ruffian shall not marry our adorable Goose.”
As he formulated this ultimatum the preux chevalier turned the corner of Saint James’s Street. Seated in the bow window of Ward’s was the object of these reflections. He was reading Horse and Hound. From a distance Cheriton marked him with the air of a satyr.
“There he is,” he muttered cheerfully. “He’s got the head of a rocking-horse, thank God!”
Seen in profile, George’s pouched, purple face, his ungainly jowl, his loose cheeks, and his bald head, without exactly meriting the strictures to which their owner had been exposed, yet bore a kind of wooden stupidity which gave grounds for the portrait.
Cheriton, having observed that none of his fellow-members were within earshot, advanced to the recess with an air of bonhomie that was totally lost upon George, who was not in the least susceptible to casual external influences.
“How are you, George?” he said heartily.
“Pooty well for an old ’un,” said George, with the rough geniality he extended to everybody.
“I hope you are quite free of the old trouble?” said Cheriton, solicitously.
“Free as I ever shall be,” said George.
“As I haven’t seen you about lately I was beginning to fear that you were laid up again.”