phere of garret bread-and-cheese to a sphere of villa champagne
and chicken (and who, of course, in proportion to the previous scarcity
of her bread-and-cheese, grew immediately intolerant of any wine less
than 90s the dozen), said the Cecil cared for nothing longer than a
fortnight, unless it was his horse, Forest King. It was very ungrateful
in the Zu-Zu, since he cared for her at the least a whole quarter,
paying for his fidelity at the tune of a hundred a month; and, also,
it was not true, for, besides Forest King, he loved his young brother
Berkeley--which, however, she neither knew nor guessed.

"Beastly!" replied the young gentleman, in reference to the weather,
which was indeed pretty tolerable for an English morning in February. "I
say, Bertie--are you in a hurry?"

"The very deuce of a hurry, little one; why?" Bertie never was in a
hurry, however, and he said this as lazily as possible, shaking the
white horsehair over his helmet, and drawing in deep draughts of Turkish
Latakia previous to parting with his pipe for the whole of four or five
hours.

"Because I am in a hole--no end of a hole--and I thought you'd help me,"
murmured the boy, half penitently, half caressingly; he was very girlish
in his face and his ways. On which confession Rake retired into the
bathroom; he could hear just as well there, and a sense of decorum made
him withdraw, though his presence would have been wholly forgotten by
them. In something the same spirit as the French countess accounted for
her employing her valet to bring her her chocolate in bed--"Est ce que
vous appelez cette chose-la un homme?"--Bertie had, on occasion, so
wholly regarded servants as necessary furniture that he had gone
through a love scene, with that handsome coquette Lady Regalia,
totally oblivious of the presence of the groom of the chambers, and
the possibility of that person's appearance in the witness-box of the
Divorce Court. It was in no way his passion that blinded him--he did
not put the steam on like that, and never went in for any disturbing
emotion--it was simply habit, and forgetfulness that those functionaries
were not born mute, deaf, and sightless.

He tossed some essence over his hands, and drew on his gauntlets.

"What's up Berk?"

The boy hung his head, and played a little uneasily with an ormolu
terrier-pot, upsetting half the tobacco in it; he was trained to his
brother's nonchalant, impenetrable school, and used to his brother's
set