Under Two Flags
tably heavy. The Brigades were fairly worked to death, and the Indian service, in the heat of the
n; the skirmishes with sharpshooters of the bright-eyed Irregular Lancers; the foraging duty when fair commanders wanted ices or strawberries at garden parties; the ball-practice at Hornsey Handicaps; the terrible risk of crossing the enemy's lines, and being made to surrender as prisoners of war at the jails of St. George's, or of St. Paul's, Knightsbridge; the constant inspections of the Flying Battalions of the Ballet, and the pickets afterward in the Wood of St. John; the anxieties of the Club commissariats, and the close vigilance over the mess wines; the fatigue duty of ballrooms, and t
a-box, or private concert, or rose-shadowed boudoir, fashionably affiche without being visited by him. How he, in especial, had got his reputation it would have been hard to say, unless it were that he dressed a shade more perfectly than anyone, and with such inimitable carelessness in the perfection, too, and had an almost unattainable matchlessness in the sangfroid of his
by an evening's wear, gave a cook the cordon with his praise, and rendered a fresh-in
o help from the old lord, or from his elder brother, the heir; and now every chance of it was hopelessly closed; nothing but the whim or the will of those who held his floating paper, and the trade
at he sat at the Guards' mess, flirted with foreign princesses, or laughed at the gossamer gossip of the town over iced drinks in the clubs. His liabilities were tremendous, his resources totally exhausted; but such was the late
realize that midnight darkness, that yawning desolation which were nigh, while the sun was still so bright and the sea so tranquil, and
ted if a sharp shock and a second's blindness, and a sudden sweep down under the walls of the Cathedral or the waters of the Tagus, were not, on the whole, a quicker and pleasanter mode of extinction than that social earthquake -"gone to the bad with a crash"? And the Lisbonites did not more disbelieve in, and dream less of their coming ruinuards at Lord's, and, in an unwary moment, having allowed himself to be decoyed afterward to a private concert, and very nearly proposed to in conse
the superior wisdom and beautiful simplicity of maki
t phase of law and life, and of having been enormously mulcted in damages because he was a Duke in future, and because, as he
red Cecil, with philosophy. "It's like the Church, the Commons
proposal during the Symphony in A, on which his thoughts ran, as the thoughts of one who has just escaped from an Alpine crevasse run on the past abyss in which he had been so nearly lost forever. "I say, Beauty, were you ever
nce - on
e! And what
with a sort of pitying, sympathizing
. She was just out - an angel with a train! She had delicious eyes - like a spaniel's you know - a cheek like this peach, and lips like that strawberry there, on the top of your ice. She looked at me, and I was in love! I knew who she was - Irish lord's daughter - girl I could have had for the asking; and I vow that I thought I would ask her
elt away. When you have been so near breaking your neck down the Matrimonial Matterhorn
so close that I could see those exquisite eyes lighten and gleam, those exquisite lips part with a sigh, that beautiful face beam with the sunshine of a radiant smile. It was the dawn of love I had taught her! I pressed nearer and nearer, and I caught her soft whisper as she leaned to her mo
on roll of his gay laughte
out of a serious thing; it is so awfully difficult to keep clear of them nowadays.
ententiously. "Only think what she lost just through hungering for a chicken; if I hadn't proposed for her - for one hardl
n hungry in the wrong place, Cecil lounged out of the club to drive with half a dozen of his set to a water-party
etty French actress, being pelted with brandy cherries by the Zu–Zu, seeing their best cigars thrown away half-smoked by pretty pillagers, and driving back again to town in the soft, starry night, with the gay rhythms ringing from the box-seat as the leaders dashed al
eople, only born t
be al
such hair too; what's
their bosoms? I feel
t it was a musty old bore of a place, where they worried you about visas and luggage and all that, chloride of lim'd you if you came from the East, and couldn't give you a mount if it were ever so; and, in the third, instead of longin
who, to do him this justice, was always as courteous to a comedienne as to a countess, went himself. Passing the open window of another room, he recognized the face of his little brother among a set of young Civil Servic
ssion of the Royallieu blood in its hottest intensity. He was playing with a terrible eagerness that went to Bertie's heart
nd leaned over
are going home; will you come?" he asked, with
with a wayward, i
rritably; "don't you see
almost of sadness in him, as he leaned farther
deuce for anybody; and you know Royal hates it. Come with us, Berk; there's a capital set here, and I'm going to half a dozen
ly; a sullen cloud over his f
ows," he muttered impatiently
oi
any more expostulation. The sweetness of his temper could never be annoyed, but also he never troubled himself to
shoulders for twenty," he thought; as he shook the ribbons and started t
osses; and he would essay, with all the consummate tact the world had taught him, to persuade him from his recklessness, and warn him of the consequences. But little Berk, though he loved his elder after a fashion, was wayward, selfish, and unstable as water. He would be very sorry sometimes, very repentant, and would promise anything under the sun; but five minutes afterward
ved in the right set. "If it be very severe," he would say, "it may give him a pang once a twelvemonth - say the morning after a white
ews earlier than they told it; and as he lived, he was too constantly supplied from the world about him with amusement and variety to have to do anything beyond letting himself be amused; quietly fanned, as it were, with the lulling pun
sion, when a fair lady reproached him with this inertia. "The best style is only just to say yes or no - and be bored
how then? You would not get amused," sugges
dinners - social rockets, you know - who will always fire themselves off to sparkle instead of you, if you give them a wh
hread of the same flirtation at three different balls; showing himself for a moment at a Premier's At-home, and looking eminently graceful and preeminently weary in an ambassadress' d
that cherished and ever-discreet confidant, a cheroot, the brutal demands of the Service; which would drag him off, in five hours' tim
Surprise was a weakness of raw inexperience that Cecil never felt; his gazette as Commander-inChief, or the presence of the Wandering Jew in his lodgings would never have excit
imely apparition; but his eyes dwelt on him with a
r–Amu
Clearwell, Guineas, and Derby as a certainty. An accident to the young chestnut was the only thing that suggeste
d up confusedl
r women," he said peevishly; "there may
, stretching himself with a yawn. "With every regard to hospitality and the charms of your society, might I hint
, Bertie! I am the most mis
ence vanished from them, and a look of genuine and aff
not one who would have reminded the boy of his own advice and its reject
ll they wake me with my coffee; then I take them up with the cup and put them do
roachful anger, and in the gaslight his c
and you care no more than if you were a stone. You
that very race. There is a childish, wayward, wailing temper, which never counts benefits received save as title-deeds by which to demand others. Cecil looked at him with just a shadow of
's brutal now; you never see that form now
French novels, the cigarettes, and the gold essence-bottles with which it was strewn; there was som
he money for my life; no Jews will lend to me, I am under age; and - and"- his voice sank lower and grew more defiant, for he knew that the sole thing forbidden him peremptorily by both his father and his brothers was the thing
to him, and sets on that belief as though a bank were his to lose his gold from, was never more
ad come there when Lord Royallieu had dishonored his mother's name. In his code there was
he said, with a keener inflection of pain and contempt than had
er rather than of shame; he did not lift his eyes, but gazed sullenly
ently. "Are you such a mirror of honor yourself? I suppo
his friends, or one for which the law could not seize him. He was silent; he did not wish to have a scene of discussion with on
ut any change of expression, pu
I was. I am not altogether so satisfied with myself as to suggest myself as a model for anything, unless it were to stand in a tailor's window in Bond Street to show the muffs how to dress. That isn'
hat banished at a stroke his sullen defiance; he
ion of the trepidation on him; "as I live I would! I have had so much from him lately - you don't
Foreclo
You know the lands are mortgaged as deeply as Monti and the entail would allow them. They threatened to foreclose - I think that's the word - and Royal has had
enaced his house; and to find how entirely his father's morbid mania against him severed him from all the inter
stretch of his limbs; it was his nature to glide off painful subjects. "A
t myself through the br
spendthrift - he might have exercised a better influence, and his brother's young life might have been more prudently launched upon the world. He felt, too, with a sharper pang than he had ever felt it for himself, the brilliant beggary in which he lived, the utter inability he had to raise even the sum that the boy
I am all down-hill; my bills may be called in any moment; when they are I must send in my papers to sell, and cut the country, if my duns don't catch me before, which they probably will; in which event I shall be to all intents and purposes - d
om it had to be given full as much as it could wound him whom it refused. Berkeley heard it in silence; his head still h
ave been behaving like a cur, and - and - all that, I know. But - there is o
, little one," said Cecil,
e Jews 'melt' at a risk. Now - now - look here. I can't see that there could be any harm in it. You are such chums with Lord Rockingham, and he's as rich as all the Jews put together. What could t
ot color burned in his face, he darted a swift look at his brother, so full of dread and misery that it pierced Cecil to the quick as he r
"If I did such a thing as that, I should dese
, more evil, as he still bent his eyes on the
agely, with a plaintive moan of pain in the tone; he t
would be the shame of a gentleman," said Ceci
u will n
replied
something that made the supple, childish, petulant, cowardly nature of the boy shrink and be silenced; something for a single instant
at me as if I were a scoundrel," he moaned passionately. "The Seraph would give you the money at
ars, by what right should
ully scrupulous,
to push the argument. His character was too indolent to defend itself against asper
speak as if I were the greatest blackguard on earth. You'll let me go to the bad tomorrow rather than bend your pride to save me; you live like a Duke, and don't care if I should die in a debtor's prison! You only brag abou
scarcely correct,
rough carelessness, partly through generosity; but the absence in his brother of that delicate, intangible, indescribable sensitive-nerve
the temperament created without it; it may be tau
ll through, never fear. Listen to me; go down to Royal, and tell him all frankly. I know him better than you; he will be savage for a second, but he would sell every stick and stone on the land for yo
shunning his brother's, the
if you like, that it is through following my follies that
his lips, as he said the last word
ear me? wi
want m
ur wor
my w
and leaving in its stead a wavering shadow. He rose with a sudden movement; his tumbled hair, his disordered attire, his bloodshot eyes, his haggard look of sleeplessness and excitement in strange contrast with the easy perfection of Cecil's dress and the calm languor of his attitude. Th
ve a lit
d have come in with the coffee. Never be impulsi
he had to send away the young one without help, though he knew that the course he had made him adopt would serve him more perm
t meet any man in the Guards face to face if I sunk myse
would gladly have believed that his brother
understand that I asked anything so dreadful; but I suppose you ha
r banish a pang of pain at his heart, less even for his brother's ingratitude than at h
necessities for which his help had been asked; and he was forced, despite all his will, to look for the first time blankly in the face the ruin that awaited him. There was no other name for it: it would be ruin complete and wholly inevitable. His signature would have been accepted no m
as the very necessities of existence; his very name forgotten in the world of which he was now the darling; a man without a career, without a hope, without a refuge - he could not realize that this was what awaited him then; this was the fate that must within so short a space be his. Life had gone so smoothly
were really come to this pass with him. It is so hard for a man who has the magnificence of the fashionable clubs open to him day and night to beat into his brain the truth that in six months hence he may be lying in the debtors' prison at Baden; it is so difficult for a man who has had n
I should win some heavy pots on the Prix de Dames, things would swim on again. I must win; the King will be as fit as in the Shi
hat he read himself to sleep with Terrail's "Club des Valets de Coeur," and slept i
e King was in the height of excitation, alarm, and haughty wrath. His ears were laid flat to his head, his nostrils were distended, his eyes were glancing uneasily with a nervous, angry fire rare in him, and ever and anon he lashed out his heels with a tre
oportionately to his own renown and dignity. The King was a very sweet-tempered horse, a perfect temper, indeed, and ductile to a touch from those he loved; but he liked very few, and would suffer liberties from none. And of a truth his prejudices were very just; and if his clever heels had caug
essive night went on as the speakers moved to a prudent distance; one of them thoughtfully chewing a bit of straw, after th
cks his oats up to the last grain; leads the whole string such a rattling spin as never was spun but by a Derby cra
" "It'll only knock him over for the race; he'll be right as a trivet after it. What's your lit
pected of even worse games than that, and now is that set up with pride and sich-like that nobody's woice ain't heard here except his; I say what am I called on to bear it for?": and the head groom's tones grew hoarse and vehement, roaring louder under his injuries. "A man what's attended a Duke's 'osses ever since he was a shaver, to be put aside for that work
straw savagely in two, and made an end of it, with a vindictive "Will yer be quiet th
his companion - the "cousin out o
you say?" relented
dsomer," retorted the Yorkshire cousin, with th
ny?" pursued Mr. Willo
, with his arms folded to intimate that this and nothi
se as though he were a human thing to hear, to witness
'll spy on us.
you'll pain
'll - pa
- still with that cringing, terrified look backward to the horse, as an assassin may steal a glance before his deed at his unconsciou
n appetite to his neglected gruel. Unhappily for himself, his fine instincts could not teach him the conspiracy t
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