And with these words Mr. Dingwell got up, looking unaccountably angry, and made a half-sarcastic, half-furious bow, wherewith he dismissed Mr. Cleve Verney, with more distinct convictions than ever that the old gentleman was an unmitigated beast, and more than half a lunatic.
WHO should light upon Cleve that evening as he walked homeward but our friend Tom Sedley, who was struck by the anxious pallor and melancholy of his face.
Good-natured Sedley took his arm, and said he, as they walked on together,--
"Why don't you smile on your luck, Cleve?"
"All the world knows everything but its own business."
"Well, people do say that your uncle has lately got the oldest peerage--one of them--in England, and an estate of thirty-seven thousand a year, for one thing, and that you are heir-presumptive to these trifles."
"And that heirs-presumptive often get nothing but their heads in their hands."
"No, you'll not come Saint Denis nor any other martyr over us, my dear boy; we know very well how you stand in that quarter."
"It's pleasant to have one's domestic relations so happily arranged by such very competent persons. I'm much obliged to all the world for the parental interest it takes in my private concerns."
"And it also strikes some people that a perfectly safe seat in the House of Commons is not to be had for nothing by every fellow who wishes it."
Tom Sedley laughed as he said this, and Cleve looked at him sharply, but saw no uncomfortable meaning in his face.
"There is no good in talking of what one has not tried," said he. "If you had to go down to that tiresome House of Commons every time it sits; and had an uncle like mine to take you to task every time you missed a division--you'd soon be as tired of it as I am."
"I see, my dear fellow, you are bowed down under a load of good luck." They were at the door of Tom Sedley's lodgings by this time, and opening it, he continued, "I've something in my room to show you; just run up with me for a minute, and you'll say I'm a conjuror."
Cleve, not to be got into good spirits that evening, followed him upstairs, thinking of something else.
"I've got a key to your melancholy, Cleve," said he, leading the way into his drawing-room. "Look _there_," and he pointed to a clever copy in crayons of the famous Beatrice Cenci, which he had hung over his chimney-piece.