"First-rate, old boy! Westonhanger's gone abroad--to America, I mean; Sioux Indians, and that sort of thing. Wanted you awfully to go with him, but thought you were doing monseigneur on your _terre_. Asked about you no end, give you my word! And the Duke's really tremendous! 'pon my soul, some fellow ought to put him in a book! Ever since the row about the repeal of the Corn Laws has been coming to a head, he's been like a lunatic. He thinks it's all up with everything, and is sure we shall have a revolution, and that he'll have his head cut off by the mob and stuck on a pike, and all that kind of thing." "And Algy Forrester?" asked Dollamore. "Algy Forrester was here to-day," said Hetherington; "came to me about a devilish unpleasant thing. That fellow Mitford, whom you both know" ("Now, then, listen!" said Dollamore),--"that fellow Mitford has asked him--Algy, I mean--to put him up here. And Algy came to ask if I'd second him, and I told him I'd see Mitford d--d first. And so I would. I ain't a strait-laced party, and don't go in for being particularly virtuous myself; but I'm a bachelor, and am on my own hook. But the way that fellow Mitford treats that nice wife of his is neither more nor less than blackguardly, I think; and so I wouldn't mind telling him, if I'd the chance." "Hallo, Cis!" said Markham Bowers, who was sitting near; "shut your stupid old mouth. You'll get into a mess if you give tongue like that,--get cut off in the flower of your youth; and then what weeping and wailing there'll be among the ten tribes, and among those unfortunate Christians who have been speculating on your autograph. Not that you're wrong in what you say about Mitford; for if ever a cad walked this earth, that's the man." "Ah! and isn't she a nice woman?" said Hetherington. "When she first showed in town last season, she took everybody's fancy; even Runnymede admired her, and the Duchess asked to be introduced, and they were quite thick. Wonderful! wasn't it? And to think of that snob Mitford treating her as he does, completely neglecting her, while he's--Well, I don't know; I suppose it's all right; but there ain't many things that would please me better than dropping on to that party--heavy." "You're always dropping on to parties, Cis," said Bowers; "but you had better keep quiet in this case, please. You would have to make your own chance of getting into a row, for of course the lady's name must not appear--" "Oh, don't you be afraid of me, Marky; I'm all right!" said Cis, rising and stretching himself. "You won't mind my stamping on Mitford's feet,--accidentally, of course,--if we find him in the stalls." And the two Guardsmen started away together. "Well," said Lord Dollamore, leaning forward towards his companion, "was I right or wrong?" "Right! terribly right!" said Alsager, with a set rigid face.