"By Jupiter, it's Mirobolant!" cried Strong, bursting out laughing. "Bon Jour, Chef!—Bon Jour, chevalier!"
"De la croix de Juillet, chevalier," said the Chef, laying his hand on his decoration.
"By Jove, here's some more ribbon!" said Pen, amused.
A man with very black hair and whiskers, dyed evidently with the purple of Tyre, with twinkling eyes and white eyelashes, and a thousand wrinkles in his face, which was of a strange red color, with two under-vests, and large gloves and hands, and a profusion of diamonds and jewels in his waistcoat and stock, with coarse feet crumpled into immense shiny boots, and a piece of parti-colored ribbon in his button-hole, here came up and nodded familiarly to the chevalier.
The chevalier shook hands. "My friend Mr. Pendennis," Strong said, "Colonel Altamont, of the body guard of his Highness the Nawaub of Lucknow." That officer bowed to the salute of Pen; who was now looking out eagerly to see if the person he wanted had entered the room.
Not yet. But the band began presently performing "See the Conquering Hero comes," and a host of fashionables—Dowager Countess of Rockminster, Mr. Pynsent and Miss Bell, Sir Francis Clavering, Bart., of Clavering Park, Lady Clavering and Miss Amory, Sir Horace Fogey, Bart., Lady Fogey, Colonel and Mrs. Higgs, —— Wagg, Esq. (as the county paper afterward described them), entered the room.
Pen rushed by Blanche, ran up to Laura, and seized her hand. "God bless you!" he said, "I want to speak to you—I must speak to you—Let me dance with you." "Not for three dances, dear Pen," she said, smiling: and he fell back, biting his nails with vexation, and forgetting to salute Pynsent.
After Lady Rockminster's party, Lady Clavering's followed in the procession.
Colonel Altamont eyed it hard, holding a most musky pocket-handkerchief up to his face, and bursting with laughter behind it.
"Who's the gal in green along with 'em, cap'n?" he asked of Strong.