Lady Judith reddened angrily. The same Jew dealer who sold her the jewel had insisted on having it back from her when he discovered her inability to pay for it, threatening to prosecute her for obtaining goods under false pretences.
"Mr. Topsparkle's diamonds—they belonged to his mother—are historical. His maternal grandfather was an Amsterdam Jew, and the greatest diamond merchant of his time. He had mills where the gems were ground as corn is ground in our country, and seem to have been as plentiful as corn. Egad, Lady Judith, how you would blaze in the Topsparkle diamonds!"
"Mr. Topsparkle must be sixty years of age!" exclaimed the lady, with sovereign contempt.
"I believe he is nearer seventy; but nobody supposes you would marry him for his youth or his personal attractions. Yet he is by no means a bad-looking man, and he has had plenty of adventures in his day, I can assure your ladyship. Il a vécu, as our neighbours say. Topsparkle is no simpleton. When he set out upon the grand tour nearly forty years ago, he carried with him about as scandalous a reputation as a gentleman of fashion could enjoy. He had been cut by all the straitlaced people; and it is only the fact of his incalculable wealth which has opened the doors of decent houses for him since his return."
"I thank you for the compliment implied in your recommendation of him to me as a husband," said Lady Judith, drawing herself up with that Juno-like air which made her seem half a head taller, and which accentuated every curve of her superb bust. "He is apparently a gentleman whom it would be a disgrace to know."
"O, your ladyship must be aware that a reformed rake makes the best husband. And since Topsparkle went on the Continent he has acquired a new reputation as a wit and a man of letters. He wrote an Assyrian story in the Italian language, about which the town raved a few years ago—a sort of demon story, ever so much cleverer than Voltaire's fanciful novels. Everybody was reading or pretending to read it."
"O, was that his?" exclaimed Judith, who read everything. "It was mighty clever. I begin to think better of your Topsparkle personage."
Five minutes afterwards, strolling languidly amidst the crowd, with a plain cousin at her elbow for foil and duenna, Lady Judith met Mr. Topsparkle walking with no less a person than her father.
Lord Bramber enjoyed the privilege of an antique hereditary gout, and came to Bath every season for the waters. He was a man of imposing figure, at once tall and bulky, but he carried his vast proportions with dignity and ease. He was said to have been the handsomest man of his day, and had been admired even by an age which could boast of John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough, and the irresistible Henry St. John. Basking in that broad sunshine of popularity which is the portion of a man of high birth, graceful manners, and good looks, Lord Bramber had squandered a handsome fortune right royally, and now, at five-and-fifty, was as near insolvency as a gentleman dare be. His house at Bath was a kind of haven to which he brought his family when London creditors began to be implacable. He had even thoughts of emigrating to Holland or Belgium, or to some old Roman town in the sunny south of France, where he might live upon his wife's pin-money, which happily was protected by stringent settlements and uncorruptable trustees.
He had married two out of three daughters well, but not brilliantly. Judith was the youngest of the three, and she was the flower of the flock. She had been foolish, very foolish, about Lord Lavendale, and a faint cloud of scandal had hung over her name ever since her affair with that too notorious rake. They had ridden together with foxhounds and harriers in the level fields round Hampton Court, had sat ever side by side in the royal barge, had been partners at basset, companions on all possible occasions; and the town had not been too indulgent about the lady's preference for such an unblushing reprobate. Admirers she had by the score; but since the Lavendale entanglement there had been no serious advances from any suitor of mark.