heaviest, stood between him and the
fatal hour when he must "send in his papers to sell," and be "nowhere"
in the great race of life.

He knew that a season, a month, a day, might be the only respite left
him, the only pause for him, 'twixt his glittering luxurious world and
the fiat of outlawry and exile. He knew that the Jews might be down
on him any night that he sat at the Guards' mess, flirted with foreign
princesses, or laughed at the gossamer gossip of the town over iced
drinks in the clubs. His liabilities were tremendous, his resources
totally exhausted; but such was the latent recklessness of the careless
Royallieu blood, and such the languid devil-may-care of his training
and his temper, that the knowledge scarcely ever seriously disturbed his
enjoyment of the moment. Somehow, he never realized it.

If any weatherwise had told the Lisbon people of the coming of the great
earthquake, do you think they could have brought themselves to realize
that midnight darkness, that yawning desolation which were nigh, while
the sun was still so bright and the sea so tranquil, and the bloom so
sweet on purple pomegranate and amber grape, and the scarlet of odorous
flowers, and the blush of a girl's kiss-warmed cheek?

A sentimental metaphor with which to compare the difficulties of a dandy
of the Household, because his "stiff" was floating about in too many
directions at too many high figures, and he had hardly enough till
next pay-day came round to purchase the bouquets he sent and meet the
club-fees that were due! But, after all, may it not well be doubted if a
sharp shock and a second's blindness, and a sudden sweep down under
the walls of the Cathedral or the waters of the Tagus, were not, on
the whole, a quicker and pleasanter mode of extinction than that social
earthquake--"gone to the bad with a crash"? And the Lisbonites did not
more disbelieve in, and dream less of their coming ruin than Cecil did
his, while he was doing the season, with engagements enough in a night
to spread over a month, the best known horses in the town, a dozen
rose-notes sent to his clubs or his lodgings in a day, and the newest
thing in soups, colts, beauties, neckties, perfumes, tobaccos, or square
dances waiting his dictum to become the fashion.

"How you do go on with those women, Beauty," growled the Seraph, one
day after a morning of fearful hard work consequent on having played the
Foot Guards at Lord's, and, in an unwary moment, h