“By your industry or your esprit,—how much more noble! Shall you be at the Baroness's to-night? She ought to be a little of your parents, Chevalier?”
“Again I fail to comprehend your lordship,” said the other gentleman, rather sulkily.
“Why, she is a woman of great wit—she is of noble birth—she has undergone strange adventures—she has but little principle (there you happily have the advantage of her). But what care we men of the world? You intend to go and play with the young Creole, no doubt, and get as much money from him as you can. By the way, Baron, suppose he should be a guet-apens, that young Creole? Suppose our excellent friend has invented him up in London, and brings him down with his character for wealth to prey upon the innocent folks here?”
“J'y ai souvent pense, milor,” says the little Baron, placing his finger to his nose very knowingly, “that Baroness is capable of anything.”
“A Baron—a Baroness, que voulez-vous, my friend? I mean the late lamented husband. Do you know who he was?”
“Intimately. A more notorious villain never dealt a card. At Venice, at Brussels, at Spa, at Vienna—the gaols of every one of which places he knew. I knew the man, my lord.”
“I thought you would. I saw him at the Hague, where I first had the honour of meeting you, and a more disreputable rogue never entered my doors. A minister must open them to all sorts of people, Baron,—spies, sharpers, ruffians of every sort.”
“Parbleu, milor, how you treat them!” says my lord's companion.
“A man of my rank, my friend—of the rank I held then—of course, must see all sorts of people—entre autres your acquaintance. What his wife could want with such a name as his I can't conceive.”
“Apparently, it was better than the lady's own.”