"By Jove! the Trecarrels are handsome, though," said Polwhele; "and if I had not acquired the habit of making love to a pretty face, merely as a pastime, I fear I should soon be doing it in downright earnest to Rose."
Now as Polwhele was a dangerously good-looking fellow, Denzil felt nettled by his complacent remark.
"But," added the former, "I have met scores of such girls wherever I have been quartered—at home, I mean—especially in London; just the kind of girls to do a bit of Park with; to open a pedal communication with, in mamma's carriage, or meet in a crush where Gunter's fellows have brought the ices; where Weippart's band invites to the light fantastic; and where there are covert squeezes of the hand in the Lancers, on the stairs, or under the supper tablecloth, flirtations in the conservatory, and soft things said between the figures of a quadrille, or in the breathing times of a round dance, when weary of chasing 'the glowing hours with flying feet.'"
"By Jove! Jack, how your tongue runs on!"
"Well, there is no general order against its doing so; and old Trecarrel's champagne was excellent. Oh, Lord! I have done all that sort of thing scores of times, and now find there was nothing in it; but Rose Trecarrel has the prettiest ankle I ever saw.
"Ah! you're a man of close observation."
"Well, I've seen a few in my time, on windy days, at Margate and Brighton especially."
"I am not a marrying man, and had I not been hopelessly insolvent since I came into the world, egad! I would pop to Mabel," said Waller, with a sudden earnestness to which the General's champagne perhaps contributed.
"Oh! you have got the length of calling her by her Christian name!'
"As you do Rose—well, but is it not her name?"