'Sauce, indeed!' said Puddock, with an indignant lisp, as Cluffe, having joined them, they set forward together; 'I saw some of them going in, Sir, and to look at their vulgar, unthinking countenances, you'd say they had not capacity to distinguish between the taste of a quail and a goose; but, by Jove! Sir, they have a dinner. _You're_ a politician, Cluffe, and read the papers. You remember the bill of fare--don't you?--at the Lord Mayor's entertainment in London.' Cluffe, whose mind was full of other matters, nodded his head with a grunt. 'Well, I'll take my oath,' pursued Puddock, 'you couldn't have made a better dinner at the Prince of Travendahl's table. Spanish olea, if you please--ragou royal, cardoons, tendrons, shellfish in marinade, ruffs and rees, wheat-ears, green morels, fat livers, combs and notts. 'Tis rather odd, Sir, to us who employ them, to learn that our tailors, while we're eating the dinners we do--our _tailors_, Sir, are absolutely gorging themselves with such things--with _our_ money, by Jove!' '_Yours_, Puddock, not mine,' said Devereux. 'I haven't paid a tailor these six years. But, hang it, let's get on.' So, in they walked by the barrack-yard, lighted up now with a splendid red blaze of torches, and with different emotions, entered the already crowded ball-room. Devereux looked round the room, among nodding plumes and flashing brilliants, and smirking old bucks, and simpering young ones, amidst the buzz of two or three hundred voices, and the thunder and braying of the band. There were scores of pretty faces there--blondes and brunettes--blue eyes and brown--and more spirit and animation, and, I think, more grace too, in dance and talk, than the phlegmatic affectation of modern days allows; and there were some bright eyes that, not seeming to look, yet recognised, with a little thrill at the heart, and a brighter flush, the brilliant, proud Devereux--so handsome, so impulsive, so unfathomable--with his gipsy tint, and great enthusiastic eyes, and strange melancholy, sub-acid smile. But to him the room was lifeless, and the hour was dull, and the music but a noise and a jingle. 'I knew quite well she wasn't here, and she never cared for me, and I--why should I trouble my head about her? She makes her cold an excuse. Well, maybe yet she'll wish to see Dick Devereux, and I far away. No matter. They've heard slanders of me, and believe them. Amen, say I. If they're so light of faith, and false in friendship to cast me off for a foul word or an idle story--curse it--I'm well rid of that false and foolish friendship, and can repay their coldness and aversion with a light heart, a bow, and a smile. One slander I'll refute--yes--and that done, I'll close this idle episode in _my_ cursed epic, and never, _never_ think of her again.'