Bevil was solemn,
calculating, and rather a screw. It seemed that the Count Mirabel's
feelings grew daily more fresh, and his faculty of enjoyment more keen
and relishing; it seemed that Mr. Bevil could never have been a child,
but that he must have issued to the world ready equipped, like Minerva,
with a cane instead of a lance, and a fancy hat instead of a helmet.
His essence of high breeding was never to be astonished, and he never
permitted himself to smile, except in the society of intimate friends.

Charles Doricourt was another friend of the Count Mirabel, but not his
imitator. His feelings were really worn, but it was a fact he always
concealed. He had entered life at a remarkably early age, and had
experienced every scrape to which youthful flesh is heir. Any other
man but Charles Doricourt must have sunk beneath these accumulated
disasters, but Charles Doricourt always swam. Nature had given him an
intrepid soul; experience had cased his heart with iron. But he always
smiled; and audacious, cool, and cutting, and very easy, he thoroughly
despised mankind, upon whose weaknesses he practised without remorse.
But he was polished and amusing, and faithful to his friends. The world
admired him, and called him Charley, from which it will be inferred that
he was a privileged person, and was applauded for a thousand actions,
which in anyone else would have been met with decided reprobation.

'Who is that young man?' enquired the Count Mirabel of Mr. Bond Sharpe,
taking his host aside, and pretending to look at a picture.

'He is Captain Armine, the only son of Sir Ratcliffe Armine. He has just
returned to England after a long absence.'

'Hum! I like his appearance,' said the Count. 'It is very
distinguished.'

Dinner and Lord Catchimwhocan were announced at the same moment; Captain
Armine found himself seated next to the Count Mirabel. The dinners at
Mr. Bond Sharpe's were dinners which his guests came to eat. Mr. Bond
Sharpe had engaged for his club-house the most celebrated of living
artists, a gentleman who, it was said, received a thousand a-year, whose
convenience was studied by a chariot, and amusement secured by a box
at the French play. There was, therefore, at first little conversation,
save criticism on the performances before them, and that chiefly
panegyrical; each dish was delicious, each wine exquisite; and yet, even
in these occasional remarks, Ferdinand was pleased with the lively fancy
of his nei