"No, Mr. Chester, I am not--in a drinking humor," answered Sir

Jasper, without turning round, or taking his eyes from the window.

"Sir Jasper?" said I to myself, "now where, and in what connection,

have I heard such a name before?"

He was of a slight build, and seemingly younger than either of

his companions by some years, but what struck me particularly

about him was the extreme pallor of his face. I noticed also a

peculiar habit he had of moistening his lips at frequent intervals

with the tip of his tongue, and there was, besides, something in

the way he stared at the trees, the wet road, and the gray sky--a

strange wide-eyed intensity--that drew and held my attention.

"Devilish weather--devilish, on my life and soul!" exclaimed the

short, red-faced man, in a loud, peevish tone, tugging viciously

at the bell-rope, "hot one day, cold the next, now sun, now

rain-- Oh, damn it! Now in France--ah, what a climate--heavenly

--positively divine; say what you will of a Frenchman, damn him

by all means, but the climate, the country, and the women--who

would not worship 'em?"

"Exactly!" said the languid gentleman, examining a pimple upon

his chin with a high degree of interest, "always 'dored a

Frenchwoman myself; they're so--so ah--so deuced French, though

mark you, Selby," he broke off, as the rosy-cheeked maid appeared

with the brandy and glasses," though mark you, there's much to be

said for your English country wenches, after all," saying which,

he slipped his arm about the girl's round waist. There was the

sound of a kiss, a muffled shriek, and she had run from the room,

slamming the door behind her, whereupon the languid gentleman

went back to his pimple.

"Oh! as to that, Chester, I quarrel only with the climate. God

made England, and the devil sends the weather!"

"Selby," said Sir Jasper, in the same repressed tone that he had

used before and still without taking his eyes from the gray

prospect of sky and tree and winding road, "there is no fairer

land, in all the world, than this England of ours; it were a good

thing to die--for England, but that is a happiness reserved for

comparatively few." And, with the words, he sighed, a strange,

fluttering sigh, and thrust his hands deeper into his pockets.

"Die!" repeated the man Selby, in a loud, boisterous way. "Who

talks of death?"

"Deuced unpleasant subject!" said the other, with a shrug at the

cracked mirror. "Something so infernally cold and clammy about

it--like the weather."




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