“Ah, the Marquise?” sighed Sir John, turning to glance at his unfinished composition. “I was inditing an ode to her, but my muse halted for an apt rhyme to ‘soul,’ Hector.”
“’Twas a curst discreditable affair as I heard it, John!”
“Why, to be sure, Hector, my affairs are always discreditable. But the scandal being well-nigh a week old begins to grow stale, and the Marquise will be out o’ the public eye already, poor soul, unless she hath contrived some scheme to revive it, and she’s a clever creature, on my soul she is—ah, and that reminds me! What the deuce rhymes with ‘soul,’ Hector? There’s roll and poll and dole and goal and——”
“Hoot-toot, man!” exclaimed MacLean. “The de’il awa’ wi’ y’r rhymes!”
“With all my heart, Hector, for they’re bad enough, I fear,” sighed Sir John.
“Sic sinfu’ repoorts as I’ve been hearin’ o’ ye, John!” exclaimed MacLean, striding up and down the room again. “Sic a gallimaufry o’ waefu’ wickedness, sic lug-tingling tales.... O man, John, y’r reputation fair stinks!”
“It does, Hector!” nodded Sir John placidly. “Indeed, ’tis a reputation I find something hard to maintain and live up to—though I do my best——”
“Your best, whateffer? Aye, wi’ your gamblin’, your duellin’ an’ your fine French hussies—like this Marquise—a feckless body and shameless——”
“And therefore fashionable, Hector! Remember, this is Paris!”