ttle French hat under his arm, appeared on the threshold,
and entered simpering and bowing. He was extravagantly dressed in a
mixed silk coat, pink satin waistcoat, and a mushroom stock, with
breeches of silver net and white silk stockings; and had a large pearl
pin thrust through his wig. Unhappily, his splendour, designed to
captivate the porter's daughter, only served to exhibit more plainly the
nerveless hand and sickly cheeks which he owed to last night's debauch.

Apparently he was aware of this, for his first words were, 'Oh, Lord!
What a twitter I am in! I vow and protest, ma'am, I don't know where you
get your roses of a morning. But I wish you would give me the secret.'

'Sir!' she said, interrupting him, surprise in her face. 'Or'--with a
momentary flush of confusion--'I should say, my lord, surely there must
be some mistake here.'

'None, I dare swear,' Lord Almeric answered, bowing gallantly. 'But I am
in such a twitter'--he dropped his hat and picked it up again--'I hardly
know what I am saying. To be sure, I was devilish cut last night! I hope
nothing was said to--to--oh, Lord! I mean I hope you were not much
incommoded by the night air, ma'am.'

'The night air has not hurt me, I thank you,' said Julia, who did not
take the trouble to hide her impatience.

However, my lord, nothing daunted, expressed himself monstrously glad to
hear it; monstrously glad. And after looking about him and humming and
hawing, 'Won't you sit?' he said, with a killing glance.

'I am leaving immediately,' Julia answered, and declined with coldness
the chair which he pushed forward. At another time his foppish dress
might have moved her to smiles, or his feebleness and vapid oaths to
pity. This morning she needed her pity for herself, and was in no
smiling mood. Her world had crashed around her; she would sit and weep
among the ruins, and this butterfly insect flitted between. After a
moment, as he did not speak, 'I will not detain your lordship,' she
continued, curtseying frigidly.

'Cruel beauty!' my lord answered, dropping his hat and clasping his
hands in an attitude. And then, to her astonishment, 'Look, ma'am,' he
cried with animation, 'look, I beseech you, on the least worthy of your
admirers and deign to listen to him. Listen to him while--and don't, oh,
I say, don't stare at me like that,' he continued hurriedly,
plaintiveness suddenly taking the place of grandiloquence. 'I vow and
protest I am in earnest.'

'Th