The Way We Live Now Part 131

"Though why fellows shouldn't play cards because another fellow like that takes poison, I can't understand. Last year the only day I managed to get down in February, the hounds didn't come because some old cove had died. What harm could our hunting have done him? I call it rot."

"Melmotte's death was rather awful," said Nidderdale.

"Not half so awful as having nothing to amuse one. And now they say the girl is going to be married to Fisker. I don't know how you and Nidderdale like that. I never went in for her myself. Squerc.u.m never seemed to see it."

"Poor dear!" said Nidderdale. "She's welcome for me, and I dare say she couldn't do better with herself. I was very fond of her;--I'll be shot if I wasn't."

"And Carbury too, I suppose," said Dolly.

"No; I wasn't. If I'd really been fond of her I suppose it would have come off. I should have had her safe enough to America, if I'd cared about it." This was Sir Felix's view of the matter.

"Come into the smoking-room, Dolly," said Nidderdale. "I can stand most things, and I try to stand everything; but, by George, that fellow is such a cad that I cannot stand him. You and I are bad enough,--but I don't think we're so heartless as Carbury."

"I don't think I'm heartless at all," said Dolly. "I'm good-natured to everybody that is good-natured to me,--and to a great many people who ain't. I'm going all the way down to Caversham next week to see my sister married, though I hate the place and hate marriages, and if I was to be hung for it I couldn't say a word to the fellow who is going to be my brother-in-law. But I do agree about Carbury. It's very hard to be good-natured to him."

But, in the teeth of these adverse opinions Sir Felix managed to get his dinner-table close to theirs and to tell them at dinner something of his future prospects. He was going to travel and see the world. He had, according to his own account, completely run through London life and found that it was all barren.

"In life I've rung all changes through, Run every pleasure down, 'Midst each excess of folly too, And lived with half the town."

Sir Felix did not exactly quote the old song, probably having never heard the words. But that was the burden of his present story. It was his determination to seek new scenes, and in search of them to travel over the greater part of the known world.

"How jolly for you!" said Dolly.

"It will be a change, you know."

"No end of a change. Is any one going with you?"

"Well;--yes. I've got a travelling companion;--a very pleasant fellow, who knows a lot, and will be able to coach me up in things.

There's a deal to be learned by going abroad, you know."

"A sort of a tutor," said Nidderdale.

"A parson, I suppose," said Dolly.

"Well;--he is a clergyman. Who told you?"

"It's only my inventive genius. Well;--yes; I should say that would be nice,--travelling about Europe with a clergyman. I shouldn't get enough advantage out of it to make it pay, but I fancy it will just suit you."

"It's an expensive sort of thing;--isn't it?" asked Nidderdale.

"Well;--it does cost something. But I've got so sick of this kind of life;--and then that railway Board coming to an end, and the club smas.h.i.+ng up, and--"

"Marie Melmotte marrying Fisker," suggested Dolly.

"That too, if you will. But I want a change, and a change I mean to have. I've seen this side of things, and now I'll have a look at the other."

"Didn't you have a row in the street with some one the other day?"

This question was asked very abruptly by Lord Gra.s.slough, who, though he was sitting near them, had not yet joined in the conversation, and who had not before addressed a word to Sir Felix. "We heard something about it, but we never got the right story." Nidderdale glanced across the table at Dolly, and Dolly whistled. Gra.s.slough looked at the man he addressed as one does look when one expects an answer. Mr.

Lupton, with whom Gra.s.slough was dining, also sat expectant. Dolly and Nidderdale were both silent.

It was the fear of this that had kept Sir Felix away from the club.

Gra.s.slough, as he had told himself, was just the fellow to ask such a question,--ill-natured, insolent, and obtrusive. But the question demanded an answer of some kind. "Yes," said he; "a fellow attacked me in the street, coming behind me when I had a girl with me. He didn't get much the best of it though."

"Oh;--didn't he?" said Gra.s.slough. "I think, upon the whole, you know, you're right about going abroad."

"What business is it of yours?" asked the baronet.

"Well;--as the club is being broken up, I don't know that it is very much the business of any of us."

"I was speaking to my friends, Lord Nidderdale and Mr. Longestaffe, and not to you."

"I quite appreciate the advantage of the distinction," said Lord Gra.s.slough, "and am sorry for Lord Nidderdale and Mr. Longestaffe."

"What do you mean by that?" said Sir Felix, rising from his chair.

His present opponent was not horrible to him as had been John Crumb, as men in clubs do not now often knock each others' heads or draw swords one upon another.

"Don't let's have a quarrel here," said Mr. Lupton. "I shall leave the room if you do."

"If we must break up, let us break up in peace and quietness," said Nidderdale.

"Of course, if there is to be a fight, I'm good to go out with anybody," said Dolly. "When there's any beastly thing to be done, I've always got to do it. But don't you think that kind of thing is a little slow?"

"Who began it?" said Sir Felix, sitting down again. Whereupon Lord Gra.s.slough, who had finished his dinner, walked out of the room.

"That fellow is always wanting to quarrel."

"There's one comfort, you know," said Dolly. "It wants two men to make a quarrel."

"Yes; it does," said Sir Felix, taking this as a friendly observation; "and I'm not going to be fool enough to be one of them."

"Oh, yes, I meant it fast enough," said Gra.s.slough afterwards up in the card-room. The other men who had been together had quickly followed him, leaving Sir Felix alone, and they had collected themselves there not with the hope of play, but thinking that they would be less interrupted than in the smoking-room. "I don't suppose we shall ever any of us be here again, and as he did come in I thought I would tell him my mind."

"What's the use of taking such a lot of trouble?" said Dolly. "Of course he's a bad fellow. Most fellows are bad fellows in one way or another."

"But he's bad all round," said the bitter enemy.

"And so this is to be the end of the Beargarden," said Lord Nidderdale with a peculiar melancholy. "Dear old place! I always felt it was too good to last. I fancy it doesn't do to make things too easy;--one has to pay so uncommon dear for them. And then, you know, when you've got things easy, then they get rowdy;--and, by George, before you know where you are, you find yourself among a lot of blackguards. If one wants to keep one's self straight, one has to work hard at it, one way or the other. I suppose it all comes from the fall of Adam."

"If Solomon, Solon, and the Archbishop of Canterbury were rolled into one, they couldn't have spoken with more wisdom," said Mr. Lupton.

"Live and learn," continued the young lord. "I don't think anybody has liked the Beargarden so much as I have, but I shall never try this kind of thing again. I shall begin reading blue books to-morrow, and shall dine at the Carlton. Next session I shan't miss a day in the House, and I'll bet anybody a flyer that I make a speech before Easter. I shall take to claret at 20s. a dozen, and shall go about London on the top of an omnibus."

"How about getting married?" asked Dolly.

"Oh;--that must be as it comes. That's the governor's affair. None of you fellows will believe me, but, upon my word, I liked that girl; and I'd've stuck to her at last,--only there are some things a fellow can't do. He was such a thundering scoundrel!"

After a while Sir Felix followed them upstairs, and entered the room as though nothing unpleasant had happened below. "We can make up a rubber can't we?" said he.

"I should say not," said Nidderdale.