"But me no buts," interrupted Godolphin, with the playful pertinacity which he made so graceful: "you are younger than I am; when you have lived as long, you shall have a right to contradict my system--not before." Godolphin joined the supper party. Like Godolphin's, Fanny's life was the pursuit of pleasure: she lavished on it, in proportion to her means, the same cost and expense, though she wanted the same taste and refinement. Generous and profuse, like all her tribe--like all persons who win money easily--she was charitable to all and luxurious in herself. The supper was attended by four male guests--Godolphin, Saville, Lord Falconer; and Mr. Windsor. It was early summer: the curtains were undrawn, the windows were half opened, and the moonlight slept on the little grassplot that surrounded the house. The guests were in high spirits. "Fill me this goblet," cried Godolphin; "champagne is the boy's liquor; I will return to it con amore. Fanny, let us pledge each other: stay: a toast!--What shall it be?" "Hope till old age, and Memory afterwards," said Fanny, smiling. "Pshaw! theatricals still, Fan?" growled Saville, who had placed a large screen between himself and the window; "no sentiment between friends." "Out on you, Saville," said Godolphin; "as well might you say no music out of the opera; these verbal prettinesses colour conversation. But your roues are so d----d prosaic, you want us to walk to Vice without a flower by the way." "Vice indeed!" cried Saville. "I abjure your villanous appellatives. It was in your companionship that I lost my character, and now you turn king's evidence against the poor devil you seduced." "Humph!" cried Godolphin gaily; "you remind me of the advice of the Spanish hidalgo to a servant: always choose a master with a good memory: for 'if he does not pay, he will at least remember that he owes you.' In future, I shall take care to herd only with those who recollect, after they are finally debauched, all the good advice I gave them beforehand." "Meanwhile," said the pretty Fanny, with her arch mouth half-full of chicken, "I shall recollect that Mr. Saville drinks his wine without toasts--as being a useless delay." "Wine," said Mr. Windsor, sententiously, "wine is just the reverse of love. Your old topers are all for coming at once, to the bottle, and your old lovers for ever mumbling the toast." "See what you have' brought on yourself, Saville, by affecting a joke upon me," said Godolphin. "Come, let us make it up: we fell out with the toast--let us be reconciled by the glass.--Champagne?"