Sword and Gown | Page 5

Paris being enthusiastic about Dorade and its advantages, describing it as a sort of happy hunting-ground, and so deciding us on choosing it in preference to Nice?"
"Ah! he did drivel a good deal. I think he had been drinking," the other answered.
"No; I understand him now. He had been bored here into a sullen, vicious misanthropy; and he wanted to take it out on the human race by getting others in the same mess. It's just like that jealous old Heathfield, who, when he is up to his girths in a squire-trap, never halloos ''ware bog,' till five or six more are in it. I can fancy the hoary-headed villain gloating hideously over us now. I wish I had him here. I could be so unkind to him! He talked about the shooting and the society. Bah! there's about one cock to every thousand acres of forest; and as for women fair to look upon, I've not flushed one since we came. I don't think I can stand it much longer."
"I am very sorry," Harry said; "I knew you were being bored to death, and it's all on my account; but I didn't like to ask you about it. I'm so horribly selfish!" The shadow of an imminent penitence began to steal over him, when Royston broke in--
"Don't be childish. I liked to stay--never mind why--or I should not have done so. Only now--you are getting better, and I realize the situation more. I hardly know where to go. Not back to England, certainly, yet. Besides the nuisance and chance work of picking up a stud in the middle of the season, it isn't pleasant to be consoled for a blank day by, 'you should have been here last month. Never was such scent; and heaps of straight-running foxes!' And then they indulge themselves in an imaginative 'cracker,' knowing you can't contradict them. Shall I go to Albania? I should like to kill something before I turn homeward."
Harry seemed musing. Suddenly he half started up, clapping his hands. "I knew I had forgotten!"
"Not such a singular circumstance as to warrant all that indecent exultation," was the reply. "Well, out with it."
"I never told you that Fan had a letter this morning from Cecil Tresilyan (they're immense friends, you know) to ask her to engage rooms for them. They are in Paris now, and will be here in three days."
Keene raised himself on his arm, regarding his comrade with a sort of admiration. "You're a natural curiosity, mon cher. None of us ever quite appreciated you. I don't believe there's another man in existence, situated as we are, who would have kept that intelligence at the back of his head so long. The Tresilyan, of course? I remember hearing about her in India. Annesley came back from sick leave perfectly insane on the subject. She must be something extraordinary, for the recollection of her made even him poetical--when he was sober. I asked about her when I got to England, but her mother was taken very ill, or did something equally unjustifiable, so she left town before I saw her."
"The mother really was ill," Molyneux said, apologetically; "at least she died soon after that. Miss Tresilyan has never shown much since. But you've no idea of the sensation she made during her season and a half. They called her The Refuser, she had such a fabulous number of offers, and wouldn't look at any of them. By-the-by, there's rather a good story about that. You know Margate? He's going to the bad very fast now, but he was the crack puppy of that year's entry; good-looking, long minority, careful guardians, leases falling in, mother one of the best Christians in England, and all that sort of thing. Well, Tom Cary took him in hand, and brought him out in great form before long. They were talking over their preparations for the moors, for they were going to start the next day. 'I believe that's all,' Margate asked, 'or have we forgotten any thing?' 'Wait a minute,' said Tom, and reflected (provident man, Tom; fond of his comforts, and proud of it)--'Ah! I thought there was something. You haven't proposed to The Tresilyan.' They say Margate's face was a study. He never disputed the orders of his private trainer, so he only said, piteously, 'But I don't want to marry any one,' and looked as if he was going to cry. 'You are "ower young,"' Cary said, encouragingly, 'and it's about the last thing I should press upon you. It wouldn't suit my book at all. But I don't see how that affects the question. I can lay ten ponies to one she won't have you. It's the thing to do, depend upon it. All the other good men have had a