Alice, or the Mysteries — Book 04

								

invited them to pass the evening at the rectory; and Cleveland, hearing
that whist was a regular amusement, accepted the invitation for his host
and himself.  But when the evening came, Maltravers pleaded
indisposition, and Cleveland was obliged to go alone.
When the old gentleman returned about midnight, he found Maltravers
awaiting him in the library; and Cleveland, having won fourteen points,
was in a very gay, conversable humour.
"You perverse hermit!" said he, "talk of solitude, indeed, with so
pleasant a family a hundred yards distant!  You deserve to be
solitary,--I have no patience with you.  They complain bitterly of your
desertion, and say you were, at first, the enfant de la maison."
"So you like the Mertons?  The clergyman is sensible, but commonplace."
"A very agreeable man, despite your cynical definition, and plays a very
fair rubber.  But Vargrave is a first-rate player."
"Vargrave is there still?"
"Yes, he breakfasts with us to-morrow,--he invited himself."
"Humph!"
"He played one rubber; the rest of the evening he devoted himself to the
prettiest girl I ever saw,--Miss Cameron.  What a sweet face! so modest,
yet so intelligent!  I talked with her a good deal during the deals in
which I cut out.  I almost lost my heart to her."
"So Lord Vargrave devoted himself to Miss Cameron?"
"To be sure,--you know they are to be married soon.  Merton told me so.
She is very rich.  He is the luckiest fellow imaginable, that Vargrave!
But he is much too old for her: she seems to think so too.  I can't
explain why I think it; but by her pretty reserved manner I saw that she
tried to keep the gay minister at a distance: but it would not do.  Now,
if you were ten years younger, or Miss Cameron ten years older, you might
have had some chance of cutting out your old friend."
"So you think I also am too old for a lover?"
"For a lover of a girl of seventeen, certainly.  You seem touchy on the
score of age, Ernest."
"Not I;" and Maltravers laughed.
"No?  There was a young gentleman present, who, I think, Vargrave might
really find a dangerous rival,--a Colonel Legard,--one of the handsomest
men I ever saw in my life; just the style to turn a romantic young lady's
head; a mixture of the wild and the thoroughbred; black curls, superb
eyes, and the softest manners in the world.  But, to be sure, he has
lived all his life in the best society.  Not so his friend, Lord
Doltimore, who has a little too much of the green-room lounge and French
cafe manner for my taste."
"Doltimore, Legard, names new to me; I never met them at the rectory."
"Possibly they are staying at Admiral Legard's, in the neighbourhood.
Miss Merton made their acquaintance at Knaresdean.  A good old lady--the
most perfect Mrs. Grundy one would wish to meet with--who owns the
monosyllabic appellation of Hare (and who, being my partner, trumped my
king!) assured me that Lord Doltimore was desperately in love with