“No—no—” said Borodaile,
haughtily, “I leave my quarrels to no man;
if I could not master him myself, no one else shall
do it for me. Mr. Linden, excuse me, but I am
perfectly recovered, and can walk very well without
your polite assistance. Mr. Watchman, I am obliged
to you: there is a guinea to reward your trouble.”
With these words, intended as a farewell, the proud
patrician, smothering his pain, bowed with extreme
courtesy to Clarence, again thanked him, and walked
on unaided and alone.
“He is a game blood,” said the watchman,
pocketing the guinea.
“He is worthy his name,” thought Clarence;
“though he was in the wrong, my heart yearns
to him.”
Things wear a vizard which I think to like not.—Tanner
of Tyburn.
Clarence, from that night, appeared to have formed
a sudden attachment to Lord Borodaile. He took
every opportunity of cultivating his intimacy, and
invariably treated him with a degree of consideration
which his knowledge of the world told him was well
calculated to gain the good will of his haughty and
arrogant acquaintance; but all this was in effectual
in conquering Borodaile’s coldness and reserve.
To have been once seen in a humiliating and degrading
situation is quite sufficient to make a proud man
hate the spectator, and, with the confusion of all
prejudiced minds, to transfer the sore remembrance
of the event to the association of the witness.
Lord Borodaile, though always ceremoniously civil,
was immovably distant; and avoided as well as he was
able Clarence’s insinuating approaches and address.
To add to his indisposition to increase his acquaintance
with Linden, a friend of his, a captain in the Guards,
once asked him who that Mr. Linden was? and, on his
lordship’s replying that he did not know, Mr.
Percy Bobus, the son of a wine-merchant, though the
nephew of a duke, rejoined, “Nobody does know.”
“Insolent intruder!” thought Lord Borodaile:
“a man whom nobody knows to make such advances
to me!”
A still greater cause of dislike to Clarence arose
from jealousy. Ever since the first night of
his acquaintance with Lady Flora, Lord Borodaile had
paid her unceasing attention. In good earnest,
he was greatly struck by her beauty, and had for the
last year meditated the necessity of presenting the
world with a Lady Borodaile. Now, though his
lordship did look upon himself in as favourable a light
as a man well can do, yet he could not but own that
Clarence was very handsome, had a devilish gentlemanlike
air, talked with a better grace than the generality
of young men, and danced to perfection. “I
detest that fellow!” said Lord Borodaile, involuntarily
and aloud, as these unwilling truths forced themselves
upon his mind.
“Whom do you detest?” asked Mr. Percy
Bobus, who was lying on the sofa in Lord Borodaile’s
drawing-room, and admiring a pair of red-heeled shoes
which decorated his feet.
