turned to gaze at the man, who answered without more semblance
of deference, and now, for the first time, their eyes met. It was,
evidently, Spicer's game, by a bold assertion of former intimacy, to
place their future intercourse on its old footing; and just as equally
decided was Beecher that no traditions of the past should rise up and
obtrude themselves on the present, and so he threw into this quiet,
steady stare an amount of haughty resolution, before which Spicer
quailed and struck his flag.

"Perhaps I should say three hours, my Lord," added Spicer, flurriedly;
and Beecher turned away with a slight curl on his lip, as though to say,
"The conflict was not a very long one." Spicer marked the expression,
and vowed vengeance for it.

"I thought you 'd have got here two or three days before," said Beecher,
carelessly.

"Vetturino travelling is not like extra-post, my Lord," said Spicer,
fawningly. "You could cover your hundred miles between breakfast and a
late dinner, while we thought ourselves wonderful to get over forty from
sunrise to midnight."

"That's true," yawned out Beecher; "vetturino work must be detestable."

"No man could give you a better catalogue of its grievances than
your father-in-law, my Lord; he has had a long experience of them. I
remember, one winter, we started from Brussels in the deep snow,--there
was Baring, Hope, Fisk, Grog, and myself."

"I don't care to hear your adventures; and it would be just as agreeable
to me were you to call my relative Captain Davis, as to speak of him by
a vulgar nickname."

"Faith, my Lord, I did n't mean it. It slipped out quite unconsciously,
Just as it did awhile ago,--far more awkwardly, by the bye,--when I was
talking to Lady Lacking-ton. The dowager, I mean."

"And what occasion, sir, had you to refer to Captain Davis in _her_
company?" asked Beecher, fiercely.

"She asked me plumply, my Lord, what was her Ladyship's name, what
family she came of, who her connections were, and I told her that I
never heard of any of them, except her father, popularly known as Grog
Davis,--a man that every one on the turf was acquainted with."

"You are a malicious scoundrel, Spicer," said Beecher, whose pale cheek
now shook and trembled with passion.

"Well, I don't think so, my Lord," said the other, quietly. "It is
not, certainly, the character the world gives me. And as to what passed
between her Ladyship and myself this afternoon, I did my very best to
es