Lord Almeric flew down the stairs on the wings of triumph, rehearsing at
each corner the words in which he would announce his conquest. He found
his host and the tutor sitting together in the parlour, in the middle of
a game of shilling hazard; which they were playing, the former with as
much enjoyment and the latter with as much good-humour as consisted with
the fact that Mr. Pomeroy was losing, and Mr. Thomasson played against
his will.
The weather had changed for the worse since morning. The sky
was leaden, the trees were dripping, the rain hung in rows of drops
along the rails that flanked the avenue. Mr. Pomeroy cursed the damp
hole he owned and sighed for town and the Cocoa Tree. The tutor wished
he were quit of the company--and his debts. And both were so far from
suspecting what had happened upstairs, though the tutor had his hopes,
that Mr. Pomeroy was offering three to one against his friend, when Lord
Almeric danced in upon them.
'Give me joy!' he cried breathless. 'D'you hear, Pom? She'll take me,
and I have bussed her! March could not have done it quicker! She's mine,
and the pool! She is mine! Give me joy!' Mr. Thomasson lost not a minute in rising and shaking him by the hand.
'My dear lord,' he said, in a voice rendered unusually rich and mellow
by the prospect of five thousand pounds, 'you make me infinitely happy.
You do indeed! I give your lordship joy! I assure you that it will ever
be a matter of the deepest satisfaction to me that I was the cause under
Providence of her presence here! A fine woman, my lord, and a--a
commensurate fortune!' 'A fine woman? Gad! you'd say so if you had held her in your arms!'
cried my lord, strutting and lying.
'I am sure,' Mr. Thomasson hastened to say, 'your lordship is every way
to be congratulated.' 'Gad! you'd say so, Tommy!' the other repeated with a wink. He was in
the seventh heaven of delight.
So far all went swimmingly, neither of them remarking that Mr. Pomeroy
kept silence. But at this point the tutor, whose temper it was to be
uneasy unless all were on his side, happened to turn, saw that he kept
his seat, and was struck with the blackness of his look. Anxious to
smooth over any unpleasantness, and to recall him to the requirements of
the occasion, 'Come, Mr. Pomeroy,' he cried jestingly, 'shall we drink
her ladyship, or is it too early in the day?' Bully Pomeroy thrust his hands deep into his breeches pockets and did
not budge. ''Twill be time to drink her when the ring is on!' he said,
with an ugly sneer.