Under Two Flags | Page 6

black varnish could make them, and silver spurs of glittering radiance, until his master stood full harnessed, at length, as gallant a Life Guardsman as ever did duty at the Palace by making love to the handsomest lady-in-waiting.
"To sit wedged in with one's troop for five hours, and in a drizzle too! Houses oughtn't to meet until the day's fine; I'm sure they are in no hurry," said Cecil to himself, as he pocketed a dainty, filmy handkerchief, all perfume, point, and embroidery, with the interlaced B. C., and the crest on the corner, while he looked hopelessly out of the window. He was perfectly happy, drenched to the skin on the moors after a royal, or in a fast thing with the Melton men from Thorpe Trussels to Ranksborough; but three drops of rain when on duty were a totally different matter, to be resented with any amount of dandy's lamentations and epicurean diatribes.
"Ah, young one, how are you? Is the day very bad?" he asked with languid wistfulness as the door opened.
But indifferent and weary--on account of the weather--as the tone was, his eyes rested with a kindly, cordial light on the newcomer, a young fellow of scarcely twenty, like himself in feature, though much smaller and slighter in build; a graceful boy enough, with no fault in his face, except a certain weakness in the mouth, just shadowed only, as yet, with down.
A celebrity, the Zu-Zu, the last coryphee whom Bertie had translated from a sphere of garret bread-and-cheese to a sphere of villa champagne and chicken (and who, of course, in proportion to the previous scarcity of her bread-and-cheese, grew immediately intolerant of any wine less than 90s the dozen), said the Cecil cared for nothing longer than a fortnight, unless it was his horse, Forest King. It was very ungrateful in the Zu-Zu, since he cared for her at the least a whole quarter, paying for his fidelity at the tune of a hundred a month; and, also, it was not true, for, besides Forest King, he loved his young brother Berkeley--which, however, she neither knew nor guessed.
"Beastly!" replied the young gentleman, in reference to the weather, which was indeed pretty tolerable for an English morning in February. "I say, Bertie--are you in a hurry?"
"The very deuce of a hurry, little one; why?" Bertie never was in a hurry, however, and he said this as lazily as possible, shaking the white horsehair over his helmet, and drawing in deep draughts of Turkish Latakia previous to parting with his pipe for the whole of four or five hours.
"Because I am in a hole--no end of a hole--and I thought you'd help me," murmured the boy, half penitently, half caressingly; he was very girlish in his face and his ways. On which confession Rake retired into the bathroom; he could hear just as well there, and a sense of decorum made him withdraw, though his presence would have been wholly forgotten by them. In something the same spirit as the French countess accounted for her employing her valet to bring her her chocolate in bed--"Est ce que vous appelez cette chose-la un homme?"--Bertie had, on occasion, so wholly regarded servants as necessary furniture that he had gone through a love scene, with that handsome coquette Lady Regalia, totally oblivious of the presence of the groom of the chambers, and the possibility of that person's appearance in the witness-box of the Divorce Court. It was in no way his passion that blinded him--he did not put the steam on like that, and never went in for any disturbing emotion--it was simply habit, and forgetfulness that those functionaries were not born mute, deaf, and sightless.
He tossed some essence over his hands, and drew on his gauntlets.
"What's up Berk?"
The boy hung his head, and played a little uneasily with an ormolu terrier-pot, upsetting half the tobacco in it; he was trained to his brother's nonchalant, impenetrable school, and used to his brother's set; a cool, listless, reckless, thoroughbred, and impassive set, whose first canon was that you must lose your last thousand in the world without giving a sign that you winced, and must win half a million without showing that you were gratified; but he had something of girlish weakness in his nature, and a reserve in his temperament that was with difficulty conquered.
Bertie looked at him, and laid his hand gently on the young one's shoulder.
"Come, my boy; out with it! It's nothing very bad, I'll be bound!"
"I want some more money; a couple of ponies," said the boy a little huskily; he did not meet his brother's eyes that were looking straight down on him.
Cecil gave a long, low whistle, and drew a meditative whiff from his meerschaum.
"Tres cher, you're always wanting money. So am I. So