CHAPTER IV.

We must now return to the dinner party at Lord Monteagle’s.  When the Bishop of ——­ entered the room, he found nearly all the expected guests assembled, and was immediately presented by his host to the lady of the house, who received him with all that fascinating address for which she was celebrated, expressing the extreme delight which she felt at thus becoming formally acquainted with one whom her husband had long taught her to admire and reverence.  Utterly unconscious who had just joined the circle, while Lord Monteagle was introducing his newly-arrived guest to many present, and to all of whom he was unknown except by reputation, Lord Cadurcis was standing apart, apparently wrapt in his own thoughts; but the truth is, in spite of all the excitement in which he lived, he had difficulty in overcoming the natural reserve of his disposition.

‘Watch Cadurcis,’ said Mr. Horace Pole to a fine lady.  ’Does not he look sublime?’

‘Show me him,’ said the lady, eagerly.  ’I have never seen him yet; I am actually dying to know him.  You know we have just come to town.’

‘And have caught the raging epidemic, I see,’ said Mr. Pole, with a sneer.  ’However, there is the marvellous young gentleman!  “Alone in a crowd,” as he says in his last poem.  Very interesting!’

‘Wonderful creature!’ exclaimed the dame.

‘Charming!’ said Mr. Pole.  ’If you ask Lady Monteagle, she will introduce him to you, and then, perhaps, you will be fortunate enough to be handed to dinner by him.’

‘Oh! how I should like it!’

’You must take care, however, not to eat; he cannot endure a woman who eats.’

‘I never do,’ said the lady, simply; ‘at least at dinner.’

’Ah! then you will quite suit him; I dare say he will write a sonnet to you, and call you Thyrza.’

’I wish I could get him to write some lines in my book, said the lady; ’Charles Fox has written some; he was staying with us in the autumn, and he has written an ode to my little dog.’

‘How amiable!’ said Mr. Pole; ’I dare say they are as good as his elegy on Mrs. Crewe’s cat.  But you must not talk of cats and dogs to Cadurcis.  He is too exalted to commemorate any animal less sublime than a tiger or a barb.’

‘You forget his beautiful lines on his Newfoundland,’ said the lady.

‘Very complimentary to us all,’ said Mr. Horace Pole.  ’The interesting misanthrope!’

‘He looks unhappy.’

‘Very,’ said Mr. Pole.  ‘Evidently something on his conscience.’

‘They do whisper very odd things,’ said the lady, with great curiosity.  ‘Do you think there is anything in them?’

‘Oh! no doubt,’ said Mr. Pole; ’look at him; you can detect crime in every glance.’

’Dear me, how shocking!  I think he must be the most interesting person that ever lived.  I should so like to know him!  They say he is so very odd.’