Meanwhile, Miss Craven is the subject of more remark than she is at all aware of.
"I say, Gerard," says Lord Linley's heir—a goodnatured ugly little prodigal, who is one of the shining lights of Her Majesty's Household, and goes among men by the sobriquet of "Gaolbird," for which he has to thank the unexampled brevity of his locks—"I say, Gerard, you ought to know all the remarkable objects about here: tell us, who is the mourner in the distance?"
St. John's eyes follow the direction indicated by his friend, and a shade of annoyance crosses his face. "Her name is Miss Craven, I believe," he answers, shortly.
"Uncommon good-looking girl, whoever she is!" says a second man, who has just stopped to adjust his skates; "I have been perilling my life among those d——d rushes by the edge, to get a good look at her!"
"Deuced good legs!" subjoins a third, remarkable for his laconism; taking his pipe out of his mouth to make room for his criticism, and fixing upon that part of a woman's charms which is always the first to enchain the masculine attention.
"She is vewy like a girl I used to know at the Cape," says a "Heavy," who has been vanquished in single combat by the letter R. "The Fly we used to call her, because when she settled on a f'la, it was mowally impossible to dwive her off."
St. John, who has been listening with ill-concealed anger and disgust to these comments—free as if they had been upon the points of a horse—on the charms of the woman for whom he has been trying to persuade himself that he feels inveterate aversion, turns to move away; but Linley's voice recalls him.
"I say, Gerard!—Gerard!"
"Well?"
"Do you know her?"