“Dearest lady, believe me, I respect your candour. My heart bleeds for your wrongs. So beautiful, so high above all other women in the capacity to charm! Ah, be sure such loveliness has its responsibilities. It is a gift from Heaven, and to hold it cheap is a sin.” “There is nothing in this life can be held too cheap. Beauty, love—all trumpery! You would make life a tragedy. It is a farce, Fareham, a farce; and all our pleasures and diversions only serve to make us forget what worms we are. There, go—to cards—to supper—as you please. I am going to my bed-chamber to rest this throbbing head. I may return and take a hand at cards by-and-by, perhaps. Those fellows will game and booze till daylight.” Fareham opened the door for her, as she went out, regal in port and air. She had moved him to compassion, even while she owned herself a wanton. To love passionately—and to see another preferred! There is a brotherhood in agony, that brings even opposite natures into sympathy. He passed into the gallery, a long low room, hung with modern tapestries, richly coloured, voluptuous in design. Clusters of wax tapers in gilded sconces lit up those Paphian pictures. There were several tables, at which the mixed company were sitting. Piles of the new guineas, fresh from his Majesty’s Mint, shone in the candle-light. At some tables there was a silent absorption in the game, which argued high play, and the true gambler’s spirit; at others mirth reigned—talk, laughter, animated looks. One of the noisiest was the table at which De Malfort was the most conspicuous figure; his periwig the highest, his dress the most sumptuous, his breast glittering with orders. His companions were Sir Ralph Masaroon, Colonel Dangerfield, an old Malignant, who had hibernated during the Protectorate, and had never left his own country, and Lady Lucretia Topham, a visiting acquaintance of Hyacinth’s. “Come here, Fareham,” cried De Malfort; “there is plenty of room for you. I’ll wager Lady Lucretia will pass you her hand, and thank you for taking it.” “Lady Lucretia is glad to be quit of such dishonest company,” said the lady, tossing her cards upon the table, and rising in a cloud of powder and perfume, and a flutter of lace and brocade. “If I were ill-humoured I would say you marked the cards! but as I’m the soul of good nature, I’ll only swear you are the luckiest dog in London.” “You are the soul of good nature, and I am the luckiest dog in the universe when you smile upon me,” answered De Malfort, without looking up from his cards, as the lady posed herself gracefully at the back of his chair, leaning over his shoulder to watch his play. “I would not limit the area to any city, however big.”