"I liked him. I liked his vanity and conceit; and I wouldn't for anything he had been less pretentious."
"I have none of your humoristic temperament, Julia, and I never could derive amusement from the eccentricities or peculiarities of others."
"And there's no fun like it, George. Once that you come to look on life as a great drama, and all the men and women as players, it's the best comedy ever one sat at."
"I 'm glad he 's gone for another reason, too. I suppose it's shabby to say it, but it 's true, all the same. He was a very costly guest, and I was n't disposed, like Charles the Bold or that other famous fellow, to sell a province to entertain an emperor."
"Had we a province to sell, George?" said she, laughing.
"No, but I had a horse, and unfortunately Nora must go to the hammer now."
"Surely not for this week's extravagance?" cried she, anxiously.
"Not exactly for this, but for everything. You know old Curtis's saying,--'It's always the last glass of wine makes a man tipsy.' But here comes the dinner, and let us turn to something pleasanter."
It was so jolly to be alone again, all restraint removed, all terror of culinary mishaps withdrawn, and all the consciousness of little domestic shortcomings obliterated, that L'Estrange's spirit rose at every moment, and at last he burst out, "I declare to you, Julia, if that man had n't gone, I 'd have died out of pure inanition. To see him day after day trying to conform to our humble fare, turning over his meat on his plate, and trying to divide with his fork the cutlet that he would n't condescend to cut, and barely able to suppress the shudder our little light wine gave him; to witness all this, and to feel that I mustn't seem to know, while I was fully aware of it, was a downright misery. I 'd like to know what brought him here."
"I fancy he could n't tell you himself. He paid an interminable visit, and we asked him to stop and dine with us. A wet night detained him, and when his servant came over with his dressing-bag or portmanteau, you said, or I said--I forget which--that he ought not to leave us without a peep at our coast scenery."
"I remember all that; but what I meant was, that his coming here from Castello was no accident. He never left a French cook and Château Lafitte for cold mutton and sour sherry without some reason for it."