Josh hadn’t the faintest intention of bumping into the lady, a slender, pretty young creature in a white velvet mantle—trimmed beautifully with swansdown—and who was wearing a garland of pale blush roses on the loveliest fair hair you ever did see. But as the trooper ruthfully stammered his apologies, the gentleman—becoming aware of the blue, white-faced uniform, brusquely interposed, saying in a tone by no means pleasant to hear:
“You infernal scoundrel! how dared you jostle the young lady? What do you mean by it, you blackguard, hey?”
Josh answered with a sullen frown:
“I’ve said a-ready, sir, as I didn’t go to do it, and that I’m as sorry as man can be!”
The gentleman retorted, in a cold savage way, speaking between his set teeth:
“If you had meant it, you dog, you would have been soundly thrashed for your insolence. As it is—take that!”
That was a sharp blow across the trooper’s mouth from the lady’s fan, carried in the white-gloved hand of her gallant. The ivory sticks broke, and the blood sprang, and Nelly cried out; and then, as the gentleman hurried the young lady down the steps—at the bottom of which a brougham waited—with a liveried servant holding open the door:
“You didn’t hurt the man, Arthur, did you?...” Nelly heard the young lady ask, and the answer came brusquely:
“No! though the blackguard deserved it.... Broken your fan though! Pity!... Never mind!... You shall have a prettier from Bond Street, when I get back from Town....”
Then the carriage door banged, the crowd seemed to melt away, and Mr. and Mrs. Joshua Horrotian were hurrying through the muddy ill-paved gas-lit streets, home to their lodgings. From whose dinginess the rosy glamour of the honeymoon had quite, quite fallen away....