"Handsome, to my mind, with an uplifted and unapproachable sort of beauty. A fellow might as soon love some bright particular star, etc., as the fabulously wealthy heiress of all the Jocylns. She has no end of suitors—all the best men here bow at the shrine of the ice-cold Aileen, and all in vain."
"You among the rest, my friend?" with a light laugh.
"No, by Jove!" cried Mr. Mortimer; "that sort of thing—the marble style, you know—never was to my taste. I admire Miss Jocyln immensely—just as I do the moon up there, with no particular desire ever to be nearer."
"What was that story I heard once, five years ago, about a broken engagement? Wasn't Thetford of that ilk the hero of the tale?—the romantic Thetford, who resigned his title and estate to a mysteriously-found elder brother, you know. The story ran through the papers and the clubs at the time like wildfire, and set the whole country talking, I remember. She was engaged to him, wasn't she, and broke off?"
"So goes the story—but who knows? I recollect that odd affair perfectly well; it was like the melodramas on the sunny side of the Thames. I know the 'mysteriously-found elder brother,' too—very fine fellow, Sir Guy Thetford, and married to the prettiest little wife the sun shines on. I must say Rupert Thetford behaved wonderfully well in that unpleasant business; very few men would do as he did—they would, at least, have made a fight for the title and estates. By-the-way, I wonder whatever became of him?"
"I left him at Sorrento," said Stafford, coolly.
"The deuce you did! What was he doing there?"
"Raving in the fever; so the people told me with whom he stopped. I just discovered he was in the place as I was about to leave it. He had fallen very low, I fancy; his pictures didn't sell, I suppose; he has been in the painting line since he ceased to be Sir Rupert, and the world has gone against him. Rather hard on him to lose fortune, title, home, bride, and all at one fell swoop. Some women there are who would go with their plighted husbands to beggary; but I suppose the lovely Aileen is not one of them."
"And so you left him ill of the fever? Poor fellow!"
"Dangerously ill."