“It took me near an hour and a half to answer your note,” I replied.

“And ’twas a masterpiece!” exclaimed Dolly, with withering sarcasm; “oh, a most amazing masterpiece, I’ll be bound!  His worship the French Ambassador is a kitten at diplomacy beside you, sir.  An hour and a half, did you say, sir?  Gemini, the Secretary of State and his whole corps could not have composed the like in a day.”

“Faith!” I cried, with feeling enough; “and if that is diplomacy, I would rather make leather breeches than be given an embassy.”

She fixed her eyes upon me so disconcertingly that mine fell.

“There was a time,” she said, with a change of tone, “there was a time when a request of mine, and it were not granted outright, would have received some attention.  This is my first experience at being ignored.”

“I had made a wager,” said I, “and could not retract with honour.”

“So you had made a wager!  Now we are to have some news at last.  How stupid of you, Richard, not to tell me before.  I confess I wonder what these wits find in your company.  Here am I who have seen naught but dull women for a fortnight, and you have failed to say anything amusing in a quarter of an hour.  Let us hear about the wager.”

“Where is little to tell,” I answered shortly, considerably piqued.  “I bet your friend, the Duke of Chartersea, some hundreds of pounds I could ride Lord Baltimore’s Pollux for twenty minutes, after which his Grace was to get on and ride twenty more.”

“Where did you see the duke?” Dolly interrupted, without much show of interest.

I explained how we had met him at Brooks’s, and had gone to his house.

“You went to his house?” she repeated, raising her eyebrows a trifle; “and Comyn and Mr. Fox?  And pray, how did this pretty subject come up?”

I related, very badly, I fear, Fox’s story of young Wrottlesey and the tea-merchant’s daughter.  And what does my lady do but get up and turn her back, arranging some pinks in the window.  I could have sworn she was laughing, had I not known better.

“Well?”

“Well, that was a reference to a little pleasantry Mr. Fox had put up on him some time before.  His Grace flared, but tried not to show it.  He said he had heard I could do something with a horse (I believe he made it up), and Comyn gave oath that I could; and then he offered to bet Comyn that I could not ride this Pollux, who had killed his groom.  That made me angry, and I told the duke I was no jockey to be put up to decide wagers, and that he must make his offers to me.”

“La!” said Dolly, “you fell in head over heels.”

“What do you mean by that?” I demanded.

“Nothing,” said she, biting her lip.  “Come, you are as ponderous as Dr. Johnson.”

“Then Mr. Fox proposed that his Grace should ride after me.”

Here Dolly laughed in her handkerchief.

“I’ll be bound,” said she.