With a face all smiles, but with a mien in which more dignity than he ordinarily assumed was worn, Mauleverer now moved towards Lucy, who was leaning on her partner's arm. The earl, who had ample tact where his consummate selfishness did not warp it, knew well how to act the lover, without running ridiculously into the folly of seeming to play the hoary dangler. He sought rather to be lively than sentimental; and beneath the wit to conceal the suitor.
Having paid, then, with a careless gallantry his first compliments, he entered into so animated a conversation, interspersed with so many naive yet palpably just observations on the characters present, that perhaps he had never appeared to more brilliant advantage. At length, as the music was about to recommence, Mauleverer, with a careless glance at Lucy's partner, said, "Will Miss Brandon now allow me the agreeable duty of conducting her to her father?"
"I believe," answered Lucy, and her voice suddenly became timid, "that, according to the laws of the rooms, I am engaged to this gentleman for another dance."
Clifford, in an assured and easy tone, replied in assent.
As he spoke. Mauleverer honoured him with a more accurate survey than he had hitherto bestowed on him; and whether or not there was any expression of contempt or superciliousness in the survey, it was sufficient to call up the indignant blood to Clifford's cheek. Returning the look with interest, he said to Lucy, "I believe, Miss Brandon, that the dance is about to begin;" and Lucy, obeying the hint, left the aristocratic Mauleverer to his own meditations.
At that moment the master of the ceremonies came bowing by, half afraid to address so great a person as Mauleverer, but willing to show his respect by the profoundness of his salutation.
"Aha! my dear Mr. ———-!" said the earl, holding out both his hands to the Lycurgus of the rooms; "how are you? Pray can you inform me who that young man is, now dancing with Miss Brandon?"
"It is—let me see-oh! it is a Captain Clifford, my lord! a very fine young man, my lord! Has your lordship never met him?"
"Never! Who is he? One under your more especial patronage?" said the earl, smiling.
"Nay, indeed!" answered the master of the ceremonies, with a simper of gratification; "I scarcely know who he is yet; the captain only made his appearance here to-night for the first time. He came with two other gentlemen,—ah! there they are!" and he pointed the earl's scrutinizing attention to the elegant forms of Mr. Augustus Tomlinson and Mr. Ned Pepper, just emerging from the card-rooms. The swagger of the latter gentleman was so peculiarly important that Mauleverer, angry as he was, could scarcely help laughing. The master of the ceremonies noted the earl's countenance, and remarked that "that fine-looking man seemed disposed to give himself airs."
"Judging from the gentleman's appearance," said the earl, dryly (Ned's face, to say truth, did betoken his affection for the bottle), "I should imagine that he was much more accustomed to give himself thorough draughts!"
"Ah!" renewed the arbiter elegantiarum, who had not heard Mauleverer's observation, which was uttered in a very low voice,—"ah! they seem real dashers!"
"Dashers!" repeated Mauleverer; "true, haberdashers!" Long Ned now, having in the way of his profession acquitted himself tolerably well at the card-table, thought he had purchased the right to parade himself through the rooms, and show the ladies what stuff a Pepper could be made of.
Leaning with his left hand on Tomlinson's arm, and employing the right in fanning himself furiously with his huge chapeau bras, the lengthy adventurer stalked slowly along, now setting out one leg jauntily, now the other, and ogling "the ladies" with a kind of Irish look,—namely, a look between a wink and a stare.
Released from the presence of Clifford, who kept a certain check on his companions, the apparition of Ned became glaringly conspicuous; and wherever he passed, a universal whisper succeeded.
"Who can he be?" said the widow Matemore. "'T is a droll creature; but what a head of hair!"
"For my part," answered the spinster Sneerall, "I think he is a linen- draper in disguise; for I heard him talk to his companion of 'tape.'"
"Well, well," thought Mauleverer, "it would be but kind to seek out Brandon, and hint to him in what company his niece seems to have fallen!"
And so thinking, he glided to the corner where, with a gray-headed old politician, the astute lawyer was conning the affairs of Europe.
In the interim the second dance had ended, and Clifford was conducting Lucy to her seat, each charmed with the other, when he found himself abruptly tapped on the back, and turning round in alarm,—for such taps were not unfamiliar to him,—he saw the cool countenance of Long Ned, with one finger sagaciously laid beside the nose.
"How now?" said Clifford, between his ground teeth; "did I not tell thee to put that huge bulk of thine as far from me as possible?"
"Humph!" granted Ned; "if these are my thanks, I may as well keep my kindness to myself; but know you, my kid, that Lawyer Brandon is here, peering through the crowd at this very moment, in order to catch a glimpse of that woman's face of thine."
"Ha!" answered Clifford, in a very quick tone; "begone, then! I will meet you without the rooms immediately." Clifford now turned to his partner, and bowing very low, in reality to hide his face from those sharp eyes which had once seen it in the court of Justice Burnflat, said: "I trust, madam, I shall have the honour to meet you again. Is it, if I may be allowed to ask, with your celebrated uncle that you are staying, or—"
"With my father," answered Lucy, concluding the sentence Clifford had left unfinished; "but my uncle has been with us, though I fear he leaves us to-morrow."
Clifford's eyes sparkled; he made no answer, but bowing again, receded into the crowd and disappeared. Several times that night did the brightest eyes in Somersetshire rove anxiously round the rooms in search of our hero; but he was seen no more.
It was on the stairs that Clifford encountered his comrades; taking an arm of each, he gained the door without any adventure worth noting, save that, being kept back by the crowd for a few moments, the moralizing Augustus Tomlinson, who honoured the moderate Whigs by enrolling himself among their number, took up, pour passer le temps, a tall gold-headed cane, and weighing it across his finger with a musing air, said, "Alas! among our supporters we often meet heads as heavy, but of what a different metal!" The crowd now permitting, Augustus was walking away with his companions, and, in that absence of mind characteristic of philosophers, unconsciously bearing with him the gold-headed object of his reflection, when a stately footman, stepping up to him, said, "Sir, my cane!"
"Cane, fellow!" said Tomlinson. "Ah, I am so absent! Here is thy cane. Only think of my carrying off the man's cane, Ned! Ha, ha!"
"Absent indeed!" grunted a knowing chairman, watching the receding figures of the three gentlemen; "body o' me! but it was the cane that was about to be absent!"