This person's face, he could observe, was an extremely good-looking one, though marvellously brown and sunburnt--probably, the Beau thought, from common country pursuits--a handsome English face indeed, from which looked forth two bright blue eyes. Also he was tall and well-set, though perhaps his figure was not exhibited to its best advantage owing to a rolling gait. In his apparel he showed that he was a gentleman, his coat of blue cloth being of the best, while his lace, although not costly, was that which a person of position might wear. By his side he carried a sword which evoked the deepest disdain from Bufton, since it was but a common whinyard in a black leather case, and boasted only a brass handle and hilt. For the rest, he was a young man of the Beau's own age.
As they drew close to each other in the twilight, this young man fixed those blue eyes on Bufton's face with an extremely keen glance; a glance so penetrating that the other whose nose was in the air, and whose chin was stuck out in front of him, knew well enough that he was being scanned from head to foot. Then, before he could progress more than another step or so, he was startled by hearing the new-comer address him.
"My friend," that person said, "have you not lost your way? Or are you not aware that this is private ground, the property of Miss Thorne?" For a moment the Beau could scarcely believe his ears. To be addressed as "his friend" by a person of this description! A country clod, and in a plain blue coat!
"My good fellow," he said, with now his choicest sneer, "is it not possible that the lady you mention may occasionally receive visitors other than the rural inhabitants of this neighbourhood?"
"Extremely possible," the new-corner replied, "since she deigns to receive me, who am not of this neighbourhood. But, since I happen to have a very strong and tender interest in Miss Thorne, may I make so bold as to ask if you have been received as a visitor by her to-night?"
It was, perhaps, as it happened at this juncture, a little unfortunate that Bufton had never accepted his friend Granger's estimate of him as a more just one than that which he had long since formed of himself. For the latter, in "coarse and ruffianly language," as the Beau termed it, always took great delight in telling him that he didn't know himself. "You are not as clever as you think, my friend," he would say again and again; "you are not astute, and, indeed, without my assistance you would be but a sorry knave. Also, your absurd belief in your powers of ridicule, the use of which is always the mark of either an envious person or a fool, will some day get you into trouble. I wish you could be more intelligent." Which advice was, however, entirely thrown away on Bufton, who was a man strong in his own conceit. And, perhaps, after all, he had a right to be so, since he had undoubtedly perpetrated many knavish tricks very successfully during his career.
But now his folly and his idea of his own importance ran away with him; while, at the same time, the reticence on which he prided himself--and truly so in unimportant matters, though he could blab freely on matters that should be kept secret--was shown to be the useless thing it was.
"Young man," he said, "you forget yourself, allow yourself an unpardonable license when you state that you have a strong and tender interest in Miss Thorne. Such a thing is impossible in one of your condition--indeed, in any one--now!"
"Why, you scurvy dog!" the other answered, approaching him--and now his blue eyes blazed indignantly, while his brown face seemed to assume a deeper hue--"you dare to speak thus to me--you jackanapes. Begone from off this place at once, ere I kick you down the avenue. Who are you, you bedizened mountebank, who dares put his foot here? Begone, I say, at once!"
That calmness is a mark of the truly great had long been an axiom of Beau Bufton; while he was also aware that those who possess such terrible powers of ridicule and contempt as were his, must never stoop to bandy words with others--since, thereby, even a clown might find a loophole for retaliation. Nor did he forget those axioms now, even though his blood boiled at being addressed as he had just been. But, on the other hand, none could be allowed to make such remarks to him--especially not he who had the monstrous temerity to state that he had a strong and tender interest in Miss Thorne. In Miss Thorne--the girl who, not a quarter of an hour ago, had promised to be his wife within a fortnight--the girl who had a hundred thousand guineas for portion!