Suddenly an explosion of laughter from the window, under cover of which the unconscious Sawyer revoked, and was immediately found out, startled the whole assembly. “How absurd you are!” exclaimed that noisy dame, in answer to some proposition of the Major’s which appeared highly amusing to the ladies on the sofa. “Now I appeal to ‘Cissy’ whether she agrees with you. Girls are the best judges. Cissy! _do_ you think the Major as invincible as he says he is?”
Mr. Sawyer, on thorns to hear the answer, trumped his partner’s best with considerable emphasis, and lost _another_ trick.
“It’s not fair to ask _me_,” answered Miss Dove, laughing heartily. “He knows I admire him _immensely_; I’ve always told him so!” and the three went on with their conversation, which, I am bound to say, was great nonsense, but amused them considerably all the same.
After this, Struggles thought the sooner they left off whist the better. There is scarcely a mistake, of which that intricate game admits, into which Mr. Sawyer did not rush, so to speak, as if with a suicidal purpose. “Hang the fellow!” thought Struggles, eyeing his partner with a kind of good-humoured astonishment: “if he was drunk, one could understand it; never saw such a thing! never saw such cards so thrown away! and yet the man’s no fool. Oh! he _must_ be drunk! _must_ be! but carries his liquor with discretion!” and thereupon Struggles found himself looking upon his partner’s features with a more indulgent eye, and contemplating his own losses with the resignation of a man who suffers in a good cause.
Three rubbers! one of them a bumper! How many points, for the sake of my hero, I am ashamed to confess. It was indeed, as Struggles pathetically remarked, “about the worst night he’d ever had, since he left Westminster.”
Yet there was balm in Gilead, after all. The Honourable, resisting all entreaties to stay and have some supper, rang to order his phaeton round, and went fast asleep in his arm-chair after the exertion. Their host, exhilarated by his winnings, and in high good-humour, began about the steeple-chase; and the ladies, who, I am convinced, patronise these exhibitions chiefly on account of the silk jackets, and connect them remotely in their own minds with a fancy dress ball, began to betray great curiosity on the subject of the “colours of the riders,” “_gorge de pigeon_,” the Major’s selected hue, having decidedly the call. During the discussion which so favourite a topic was sure to engender, it came out, somehow, that Mr. Sawyer was going to take part in the hazardous amusement—an announcement which he made darkly, and with a sidelong glance at Cissy, that seemed to say he would rather break his neck than not. The young lady having teased him enough, was quite ready to meet him halfway. “Isn’t it very dangerous?” said she, with clasped hands and a look of affectionate interest. “Are you _really_ going to ride, Mr. Sawyer? Oh! how I _hope_ you’ll win!” And down went the eyelashes once more.