"Because," said Dora, looking at me, with her blue eyes half closed, "if on the top of a mountain an acquaintance ripens fast, good heavens, how must it have been with you two at the bottom of the sea!"
And she laughed merrily at her own conceit, while swinging her hat to and fro by its ribbons. Lord Pottersleigh shook his head as if he disliked the whole affair, and nervously scanned the daily papers with spectacles on his thin aquiline nose, in expectation of seeing some absurd, perhaps impertinent, paragraph about it; and such was the old man's aristocratic vanity, that I verily believe, had he seen such, he would there and then have relinquished all his expectations--for he undoubtedly had them--of making Estelle Lady Pottersleigh, and the partner of his higher honours that were to come.
"Lady Naseby owes you a debt of gratitude, Mr. Hardinge, for saving the life of her daughter--and I, too," he added, "owe you an everlasting debt of gratitude."
"You, my lord?" said I, turning round in the library, where we happened to be alone.
"Yes; for in saving her you saved one in whom I have the deepest interest. So, my dear Mr. Hardinge," he continued, pompously, looking up from the Times, "if I can do aught for you at the Horse Guards, command me, my young friend, command me."
"Thanks, my lord," said I, curtly; for his tone of patronage, and the cause thereof, were distasteful to me.
"You have of course heard the rumour of--of an engagement?"
"With Lady Estelle Cressingham?"
"Exactly," said he, laughing till he brought on a fit of coughing-- "exactly--ha, ha--ugh, ugh! How the deuce these things ooze out at clubs and in society, I cannot conceive; for even the world of London seems like a village in that way. Ah, nowhere out of our aristocracy could a man find such a wife as Lady Estelle!"
"I quite agree with you; but there is a point beyond that."