e. Ladies
no longer ogled him and commanded the stopping of their chairs that
they might call him to them with coquettish reproaches that he neither
came to their assemblies nor bowed and waved hands to them as he sate
on the stage at the playhouse; beaux no longer joined him in the
coffee-house or on the Mall to ask his opinion of this new beauty or
that, and admire the cut of his coat, or the lace on his steenkirk; the
new beauty's successes would not be advanced by his opinion--a man whom
tradespeople dun from morn till night has few additions to his wardrobe
and wears few novelties in lace. Profligacy and defiance of all rules
of healthful living had marred his beauty and degraded his youth; his
gay wit and spirit had deserted him and left him suspicious and bitter.
He had been forced to put down his equipages and change his fashionable
lodgings for cheaper ones; when he lounged in the park his old
acquaintances failed to see him; when he gambled he lost. Downhill he
was going, and there was naught to stop him. For one man in England he
had, even in his most flourishing days, cherished a distaste--the man
who was five inches taller than himself, who was incomparably
handsomer, and whose rank was such, that to approach him as an equal
would have savoured of presumption. This man, who was indeed my Lord
Duke of Osmonde, had irked him from the first, and all the more when he
began to realise that for some reason, howsoever often they chanced to
be in the same place, it invariably happened that they did not come in
contact with each other, Sir John on no occasion being presented to my
lord Duke, his Grace on no occasion seeming to observe his presence
near him. At the outset this appeared mere accident, but after a few
such encounters ending in nothing, Sir John began to guess that 'twas
the result of more than mere chancing, and in time to mark that, though
he was not clumsily avoided, or in such manner as would leave any room
for complaint, my lord Duke forebore to enter into any conversation in
which he took part, or to approach any quarter where he was stationed.
Once Sir John had even tried the experiment of addressing an
acquaintance who stood near his Grace, meaning to lead up to a meeting,
but though the Duke did not move from the place where he stood, in a
few moments he had, with ease and naturalness, gathered about him a
circle which 'twould have been difficult indeed to enter. Sir John went
away livid, and ha