Dartrey free, he was relieved of the murderous drama incessantly in the mind of shackled men.

It seemed like one of the miracles of a divine intervention, that Dartrey should be free, suddenly free; and free while still a youngish man.  He was in himself a wonderful fellow, the pick of his country for vigour, gallantry, trustiness, high-mindedness; his heavenly good fortune decked him as a prodigy.

‘No harm to the head from that fall of yours?’ Mr. Fenellan said.

‘None.’  Mr. Radnor withdrew his hand from head to hat, clapped it on and cried cheerily:  ‘Now to business’; as men may, who have confidence in their ability to concentrate an instant attention upon the substantial.  ’You dine with us.  The usual Quartet:  Peridon, Pempton, Colney, Yatt, or Catkin:  Priscilla Graves and Nataly—­the Rev. Septimus; Cormyn and his wife:  Young Dudley Sowerby and I—­flutes:  he has precision, as naughty Fredi said, when some one spoke of expression.  In the course of the evening, Lady Grace, perhaps:  you like her.’

‘Human nature in the upper circle is particularly likeable.’

‘Fenellan,’ said Mr. Radnor, emboldened to judge hopefully of his fortunes by mere pressure of the thought of Dartrey’s, ’I put it to you:  would you say, that there is anything this time behind your friend Carling’s report?’

Although it had not been phrased as a report, Mr. Fenellan’s answering look and gesture, and a run of indiscriminate words, enrolled it in that form, greatly to the inspiriting of Mr. Radnor.

Old Veuve in one, to the soul of Old Veuve in the other, they recalled a past day or two, touched the skies; and merriment or happiness in the times behind them held a mirror to the present:  or the hour of the reverse of happiness worked the same effect by contrast:  so that notions of the singular election of us by Dame Fortune, sprang like vinous bubbles.  For it is written, that however powerful you be, you shall not take the Winegod on board to entertain him as a simple passenger; and you may captain your vessel, you may pilot it, and keep to your reckonings, and steer for all the ports you have a mind to, even to doing profitable exchange with Armenian and Jew, and still you shall do the something more, which proves that the Winegod is on board:  he is the pilot of your blood if not the captain of your thoughts.

Mr. Fenellan was unused to the copious outpouring of Victor Radnor’s confidences upon his domestic affairs; and the unwonted excitement of Victor’s manner of speech would have perplexed him, had there not been such a fiddling of the waltz inside him.