'
'Well then, he said that talking to me was the only thing that consoled
him for having to dine with you and to dance with Lady Shropshire.'
'Charles is jealous,' drawled the Duke.
'Of her Grace?' asked Miss Dacre, with much anxiety.
'No; but Charles is aged, and once, when he dined with me, was taken for
my uncle.'
The ladies retired, and the gentlemen sat barbarously long. Sir Chetwode
Chetwode of Chetwode and Sir Tichborne Tichborne of Tichborne were two
men who drank wine independent of fashion, and exacted, to the last
glass, the identical quantity which their fathers had drunk half a
century before, and to which they had been used almost from their
cradle. The only subject of conversation was sporting. Terrible shots,
more terrible runs, neat barrels, and pretty fencers. The Duke of St.
James was not sufficiently acquainted with the geography of the mansion
to make a premature retreat, an operation which is looked upon with an
evil eye, and which, to be successful, must be prompt and decisive,
and executed with supercilious nonchalance. So he consoled himself by
a little chat with Lord Mildmay, who sat smiling, handsome, and
mustachioed, with an empty glass, and who was as much out of water as he
was out of wine.
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