“Very cold,” says Clive, biting his nails.
“Post or Vett.?” asks my lord.
“I bought a carriage at Frankfort,” says Clive, in an offhand manner.
“Hulloh!” cries the other, who was perfectly kind, and entirely frank and pleasant, and showed no difference in his conversation with men of any degree, except perhaps that to his inferiors in station he was a little more polite than to his equals; but who would as soon have thought of a young artist leaving Baden in a carriage of his own as of his riding away on a dragon.
“I only gave twenty pounds for the carriage; it’s a little light thing, we are two, a couple of horses carry us and our traps, you know, and we can stop where we like. I don’t depend upon my profession,” Clive added, with a blush. “I made three guineas once, and that is the only money I ever gained in my life.”
“Of course, my dear fellow, have not I been to your father’s house? At that pretty ball, and seen no end of fine people there? We are young swells. I know that very well. We only paint for pleasure.”
“We are artists, and we intend to paint for money, my lord,” says Clive. “Will your lordship give me an order?”
“My lordship serves me right,” the other said. “I think, Newcome, as you are going, I think you might do some folks here a good turn, though the service is rather a disagreeable one. Jack Belsize is not fit to be left alone. I can’t go away from here just now for reasons of state. Do be a good fellow and take him with you. Put the Alps between him and this confounded business, and if I can serve you in any way I shall be delighted, if you will furnish me with the occasion. Jack does not know yet that our amiable Barnes is here. I know how fond you are of him. I have heard the story—glass of claret and all. We all love Barnes. How that poor Lady Clara can have accepted him the Lord knows. We are fearfully and wonderfully made, especially women.”
“Good heavens,” Clive broke out, “can it be possible that a young creature can have been brought to like such a selfish, insolent coxcomb as that, such a cocktail as Barnes Newcome? You know very well, Lord Kew, what his life is. There was a poor girl whom he brought out of a Newcome factory when he was a boy himself, and might have had a heart one would have thought, whom he ill-treated, whom he deserted, and flung out of doors without a penny, upon some pretence of her infidelity towards him; who came and actually sat down on the steps of Park Lane with a child on each side of her, and not their cries and their hunger, but the fear of his own shame and a dread of a police-court, forced him to give her a maintenance. I never see the fellow but I loathe him, and long to kick him out of window and this man is to marry a noble young lady because forsooth he is a partner in a bank, and heir to seven or eight thousand a year. Oh, it is a shame, it is a shame! It makes me sick when I think of the lot which the poor thing is to endure.”
“It is not a nice story,” said Lord Kew, rolling a cigarette; “Barnes is not a nice man. I give you that in. You have not heard it talked about in the family, have you?”