"But why is he so dreadful? The Amandines are tremendously exclusive, I thought."
"Oh, he goes everywhere! No party is complete without Chandos Cheveley, and I have heard that at September or Christmas he has more invitations than he could possibly accept; but he is a most objectionable man, all the same--a man every one dreads to see come near her daughters. He has extreme fascination of manner, but he has not a farthing! How he lives, dresses, drives the horses he does, is one of those miracles of London men's lives which _we_ can never hope to puzzle out. Philip says he likes him, but Philip never speaks ill of anybody, except a woman now and then, who teases him; but the man is my detestation--has been for years. I was annoyed to see his card: it is the first time he has called this season. He knows I can't endure his class or him."
With which Lady Marabout wound up a very unusually lengthy and uncharitable disquisition, length and uncharitableness being both out of her line; and Lady Cecil Ormsby rolled her handkerchief into a ball, threw it across the room for Bonbon, the spaniel puppy, and laughed till the cockatoo screamed with delight:
"Dear Lady Marabout, do forgive me, but it is such fun to hear you positively, for once, malicious! Who is your Horror, genealogically speaking? this terrible--what's his name?--Chandos Cheveley?"
"The younger son of a younger son of one of the Marquises of Danvers, I believe, my dear; an idle man about town, you know, with not a sou to be idle upon, who sets the fashion, but never pays his tailor. I am never malicious, I hope, but I do consider men of that stamp very objectionable."
"But what is Sir Philip but a man about town?"
"My son! Of course he is a man about town. My dear, what else should he be? But if Philip likes to lounge all his days away in a club-window, he has a perfect right; he has fortune. Chandos Cheveley is not worth a farthing, and yet yawns away his day in White's as if he were a millionnaire; the one can support his _far niente_, the other cannot. There are gradations in everything, my love, but in nothing more than among the men, of the same set and the same style, whom one sees in Pall-Mall."
"There are chestnut horses and horse-chestnuts, chevaliers and chevaliers d'industrie, rois and rois d'Yvetot, Carrutherses and Chandos Cheveleys!" laughed Lady Cecil. "I understand, Lady Marabout. Il y a femmes et femmes--men about town and men about town, I shall learn all the classes and distinctions soon. But how is one to know the sheep that may be let into the fold from the wolves in sheep's clothing, that must be kept out of it? Your Ogre is really very distinguished-looking."