“I thank you for the compliment implied in your recommendation of him to me as a husband,” said Lady Judith, drawing herself up with that Juno-like air which made her seem half a head taller, and which accentuated every curve of her superb torso.  “He is apparently a gentleman whom it would be a disgrace to know,”

“Oh, your Ladyship must be aware that a reformed rake makes the best husband.  And since Topsparkle went on the Continent he has acquired a new reputation as a wit and a man of letters.  He wrote an Assyrian story in the Italian language, about which the town raved a few years ago—­a sort of demon story, ever so much cleverer than Voltaire’s fanciful novels.  Everybody was reading or pretending to read it.”

“Oh, was that his?” exclaimed Judith, who read everything.  “It was mighty clever.  I begin to think better of your Topsparkle personage.”

Five minutes afterwards, strolling languidly amid the crowd, with a plain cousin at her elbow for foil and duenna, Lady Judith met Mr. Topsparkle walking with no less a person than her father.

Lord Bramber enjoyed the privilege of an antique hereditary gout, and came to Bath every season for the waters.  He was a man of imposing figure, at once tall and bulky, but he carried his vast proportions with dignity and ease.  He was said to have been the handsomest man of his day, and had been admired even by an age which could boast of “Hervey the Handsome,” John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough, and the irresistible Henry St. John.  Basking in that broad sunshine of popularity which is the portion of a man of high birth, graceful manners, and good looks, Lord Bramber had squandered a handsome fortune right royally, and now, at five-and-fifty, was as near insolvency as a gentleman dare be.  His house in Pulteney Street was a kind of haven, to which he brought his family when London creditors began to be implacable.  He had even thoughts of emigrating to Holland or Belgium, or to some old Roman town in the sunny South of France, where he might live upon his wife’s pin-money, which happily was protected by stringent settlements and incorruptible trustees.

He had married two out of three daughters well, but not brilliantly.  Judith was the youngest of the three, and she was the flower of the flock.  She had been foolish, very foolish, about Lord Lavendale, and a faint cloud of scandal had hung over her name ever since her affair with that too notorious rake.  Admirers she had by the score, but since the Lavendale entanglement there had been no serious advances from any suitor of mark.

But now Mr. Topsparkle, one of the wealthiest commoners in Great Britain, was obviously smitten with Lady Judith’s perfections, and had a keen air which seemed to mean business, Lord Bramber thought.  He had obtained an introduction to the earl within the last half-hour, and had not concealed his admiration for the earl’s daughter.  He had entreated the honor of a formal introduction to the exquisite creature with whom he had conversed on sportive terms last night at the Assembly Rooms.