'Blame his grandmother for that, Mr. Hilton; he is of the royal blood. Nell Gwynn of pious memory gave his father birth. Our last Charles was his grandsire; he hath Queen Mary's eyes. It is Lord Sidney Beauclerk.' 'I thought as much. He is a very intimate friend of her ladyship's?' 'Mr. Hilton, the world is very _grossier_,' remarked his guide, with a smirk. Mr. Wogan could have laughed. He understood why the Colonel looked so black, why the ballad was so maliciously apt, why my Lord Sidney Beauclerk was coupled with the Parson and the Colonel in the common talk. Her ladyship was taking a new lover. Colonel Montague was the crumpled ribbon that has done good service but is tossed into the cupboard to make way for fresher colours. The ballad was apt indeed. Mr. Wogan's spirits rose with a bound. Sure here was an occasion for picking a quarrel with the Colonel ready to his hand. He bowed very low to her ladyship. Her ladyship went on punting. Colonel Montague looked at him, and then looked at him again with the same perplexity which Mr. Wogan had found so distasteful one evening in St. James's Street three years before; but he said nothing. Her ladyship laid down a card and gave Mr. Wogan a hand, which he kissed with proper ceremony. 'You have come late, Mr. Hilton,' she said; 'and you have come, it seems--alone?' 'Madam,' replied Wogan, with a glance of great sympathy towards the Colonel, and in his softest brogue, 'men are born to loneliness as the sparks fly upward.' The Colonel took his meaning, and his face flushed. Wogan's spirits rose higher. If only Montague was strung to the same pitch of exasperation and injury as the Parson had been in the like circumstances! The supposition seemed probable. Mr. Wogan could have rubbed his hands in sheer content. The Colonel, however, made no rejoinder, and Mr. Wogan had to amuse himself by watching the play.