'If it were not,' said he, 'for the Chassediane--you are aware, Richie,
poor Jorian is lost to her?--he has fallen at her quicksilver feet.
She is now in London. Half the poor fellow's income expended in
bouquets! Her portrait, in the character of the widow Lefourbe, has
become a part of his dressing apparatus; he shaves fronting her playbill.
His first real affaire de coeur, and he is forty-five! So he is taken in
the stomach. That is why love is such a dangerous malady for middle age.
As I said, but for Jenny Chassediane, our Sampleman would be the fortune
for Jorian. I have hinted it on both sides. Women, Richie, are cleverer
than the illustrious Lord Nelson in not seeing what their inclinations
decline to see, and Jorian would do me any service in the world except
that one. You are restless, my son?'

I begged permission to quit the house, and wait for him outside. He, in
return, begged me most urgently to allow myself to be introduced to Lady
Edbury, the stepmother of Lord Destrier, now Marquis of Edbury; and,
using conversational pressure, he adjured me not to slight this lady,
adding, with more significance than the words conveyed, 'I am taking the
tide, Richie.' The tide took me, and I bowed to a lady of impressive
languor, pale and young, with pleasant manners, showing her character
in outline, like a glove on the hand, but little of its quality. She
accused my father of coming direct from 'that person's' box. He replied
that he never forsook old friends. 'You should,' was her rejoinder.
It suggested to me an image of one of the sister Fates cutting a thread.

My heart sank when, from Lady Edbury too, I heard the allusion to Germany
and its princess. 'Some one told me she was dark?'

'Blonde,' my father corrected the report.