"The deuce!" drawled Berkeley, holding his cigar at arm's length, and wheeling the sofa half round, to have a better view of our adjutant. "Is there any other little thing you would like?"
"I think not, sir."
"My good friend, Studhome, you are, I have not a doubt, a very excellent adjutant, well up in lance, sword, and pistol exercise—knowing how to 'set a squadron in the field,' like the amiable Othello; but you—aw—aw—must really permit me to be the best judge of my own affairs."
Studhome bowed haughtily, and then stood, cap and whip in hand, erect; so Berkeley resumed—
"You are aware of the whispers concerning Norcliff and that girl, Agnes Auriol—isn't that her name?"
"Yes, sir; I am aware there have been malicious whispers, and I have my eyes now on the circulator of them."
"Very good," said Berkeley, colouring slightly; "they are very current among the 16th Lancers and 8th Hussars. I have known a little of the girl; but have—aw—tired of her now. We all tire, my dear fellow, of such affairs in time. Take a cigar—aw—you won't—what a bore! well, so my advice to your irritated Scotch friend would be that, as she is at perfect liberty to leave my protection, she may enter quietly upon his; so there is an end to the doocid affair."
"So you may affect to think," said Studhome, eyeing the lounger with angry scorn.
"What could be more equivocal, as Lady Loftus admitted, than the circumstances under which we found them? He was supporting—actually caressing her; and then there was his proffered fifty-pound note. My dear fellow, people are not such devilish fools as—aw—to give fifty pounds to such girls for—aw—nothing!"
"Whatever you may pretend to think, or affect to say, of that affair, of my friend's ultimate intentions, as a man of spirit, you cannot be unaware."