hose ill-temper was always
augmented by any attempted smartness of those he conversed with. "He has
taken Walmsley's cook away from him, and never gives any one a dinner."

"That is shameful; a perfect dog in the manger!"

"Worse; he 's a dog without any manger! For he keeps his house on
board-wages, and there's literally nothing to eat! That poor thing,
Strejowsky."

"Oh, Olga Strejowsky, do you mean? What of her?"

"Why, there's another husband just turned up. They thought he was killed
in the Caucasus, but he was only passing a few years in Siberia; and so
he has come back, and claims all the emeralds. You remember, of course,
that famous necklace, and the great drops! They belonged once to the
Empress Catherine, but Mabworth says that he took the concern with all
its dependencies; he 'll give up his bargain, but make no compromise."

"She's growing old, I fancy."

"She's younger than the Sabloukoff by five good years, and they tell me
_she_ plays Beauty to this hour."

Ah, Scaresby, had you known what words were these you have just uttered,
or had you only seen the face of him who heard them, you had rather
bitten your tongue off than suffered it to fashion them!

"Brignolles danced with her at that celebrated _fete_ given by the
Prince of Orleans something like eight-and-thirty years ago."

"And how is the dear Duke?" asked Upton, sharply.

"Just as you saw him at the Court of Louis XVIII.; he swaggers a little
more as he gets more feeble about the legs, and he shows his teeth when
he laughs, more decidedly since his last journey to Paris. Devilish
clever fellows these modern dentists are! He wants to marry; I suppose
you 've heard it."

"Not a word of it. Who is the happy fair?"

"The Nina, as they call her now. She was one of the Delia Torres, who
married, or didn't marry, Glencore. Don't you remember him? He was
Colonel of the Eleventh, and a devil of a martinet he was."

"I remember him," said Upton, dryly.

"Well, he ran off with one of those girls, and some say they were
married at Capri,--as if it signified what happened at Capri! She was
a deuced good-looking girl at the time,--a coquette, you know,--and
Glencore was one of those stiff English fellows that think every man is
making up to his wife; he drank besides."

"No, pardon me, there you are mistaken. I knew him intimately; Glencore
was as temperate as myself."

"I have it from Lowther, who used to take him home at night; _he_ said