With that, seeing my chance, I turned and spoke to the lady on my other side, with whom I was soon in an animated discussion, but my attention was not so engrossed by her that I did not get secret enjoyment out of the fact when I discovered that the elderly man on the other side of Miss Leigh was as deaf as a post and that she had to repeat every word that she said to him.
The lady on the other side of me was rambling on about something, but just what, I had not the least idea (except that it related to the problem-novel, a form of literature that I detest), as I was soon quite engrossed in listening to the conversation between Eleanor Leigh and her deaf companion, in which my name, which appeared to have caught the gentleman's attention, was figuring to some extent.
"Any relation to my old friend, Henry Glave?" I heard him ask in what he doubtless imagined to be a whisper.
"Yes, I think so," said Miss Leigh.
"You say he is not?"
"No, I did not say so; I think he is."
"He is a fine lawyer," I heard him say, and I was just pluming myself on the rapid extension of my reputation, when he added, "He is an old friend of your father's, I know. I was glad to hear he had come up to represent your father in his case against those rascals.—A friend of yours, too," were the next words I heard, for decency required me to appear to be giving some attention to my other neighbor, whom I devoutly wished in Ballyhac, so I was trying resolutely, though with but indifferent success, to keep my attention on the story she was telling about some one whom, like Charles Lamb, I did not know, but was ready to damn at a venture.
"He told me he came on your account, as much as on your father's," said the gentleman, rallyingly. "You had better look out. These old bachelors are very susceptible. No fool like an old fool, you know."
To this Miss Eleanor made some laughing reply, from which I gathered that her neighbor was a bachelor himself, for he answered in the high key which he mistook for a whisper:
"You had better not say that to me, for if you do, I'll ask you to marry me before the dessert."