THE CAVALIER: (Smirking more knowingly than ever,—or seeming to)!!!
BELLEW: Preposterous! Quite absurd!—and just what I might have expected. Carry her off, indeed! No no, we are not living in your bad, old, glorious days when a maid's "No" was generally taken to mean "Yes"—or when a lover might swing his reluctant mistress up to his saddle-bow, and ride off with her, leaving the world far behind. To-day it is all changed,—sadly changed. Your age was a wild age, a violent age, but in some respects, perhaps, a rather glorious age. Your advice is singularly characteristic, and, of course, quite impossible, alas!—Carry her off, indeed!
Hereupon, Bellew sighed, and turning away, lighted his pipe, which had gone out, and buried himself in the newspaper.
CHAPTER XXI
Of shoes, and ships, and sealing wax, and the third finger of the left hand
So Bellew took up the paper. The house was very quiet, for Small Porges was deep in the vexatious rules of the Multiplication Table, and something he called "Jogafrey," Anthea was out, as usual, and Miss Priscilla was busied with her numerous household duties. Thus the brooding silence was unbroken save for the occasional murmur of a voice, the jingle of the housekeeping keys, and the quick, light tap, tap, of Miss Priscilla's stick.
Therefore, Bellew read the paper, and let it be understood that he regarded the daily news-sheet as the last resource of the utterly bored.
Now presently, as he glanced over the paper with a negative interest his eye was attracted by a long paragraph beginning:
At St. George's, Hanover Square, by the Right Reverend the Bishop of——, Silvia Cecile Marchmont, to His Grace the Duke of Ryde, K.G., K.C.B.
Below followed a full, true, and particular account of the ceremony which, it seemed, had been graced by Royalty. George Bellew read it half way through, and—yawned,—positively, and actually, yawned, and thereafter, laughed.