"Well, I don't know," said the earl, blushing a little, in spite of vigorous attempts to prevent it and look unconcerned. "I--I had stopped later there than I intended at Hardriggs, and I thought you would have dined, and so I put up at Hastings, and those fellows saw me and asked me to dinner." "And you went, deuced Samaritan-like and benevolent, and all that, I declare! That fellow Stackborough will be set up for life; there will be no holding him, now that he has once dined in company with a real live earl." "Well, I don't know; Mr. Stackborough seemed to me to behave like a gentleman." "O yes; but you like a fellow who bows down before you, Etchingham, we all know that; and it's natural enough. However, that's neither here nor there. What about the object of your visit to Hardriggs? You saw the young lady?" "Yes, I saw her." "And you carried out your intention?" "What intention?" asked Lord Ticehurst, summoning up courage, and looking his friend full in the face. And then Gilbert knew for certain, what he had decidedly anticipated, that Lord Ticehurst had been rejected by Gertrude. "What intention?" he replied, with a sneer already dawning on his face; "why, the intention of proposing to Miss--what does she call herself?--Miss Lambert." "Yes," said Lord Ticehurst quietly, "I carried out that intention." "Well, and we are to ring the joy-bells, and to roast the whole ox, and set the barrels of ale flowing, and order the bishop to be in readiness at St. George's, and select the new carriages, and have Etchingham new furnished. And when are we to do all this?" "Not just now, at all events," said Lord Ticehurst. "First catch your hare, don't you know?" and his lordship tried to look knowing--a process in which he failed sublimely. "Why, you don't mean to say that--" "I mean to say that I proposed to Miss Lambert--you know her name fast enough--and she refused me." "Refused you!" screamed Gilbert with admirably-assumed astonishment; "refused you,--the opera-singer, the tragedy-queen, the Princess Do Re has refused my lord with his thousands and his tens of thousands! The world is coming to an end! People will next question the value of an hereditary legislature. You astound me!" "I'll tell you what, Lloyd," said Lord Ticehurst sulkily, "I wish you to drop that style of chaff; I don't see the fun of it." "You never saw the fun of anything, Etchingham; it is not your _métier_; Providence has ordained otherwise. It's for us poor devils to see the fun that you big swells make for us." Rage swelled within Lord Ticehurst's heart as he listened to these words, which were so eminently corroborative of what Bobby Maitland had said to him, and of what he had thought to himself on his homeward drive. But he controlled himself, and said: