But, in the teeth of these adverse opinions Sir Felix managed to get his dinner-table close to theirs and to tell them at dinner something of his future prospects. He was going to travel and see the world. He had, according to his own account, completely run through London life and found that it was all barren.
In life I’ve rung all changes through,
Run every pleasure down,
Midst each excess of folly too,
And lived with half the town.
Sir Felix did not exactly quote the old song, probably having never heard the words. But that was the burden of his present story. It was his determination to seek new scenes, and in search of them to travel over the greater part of the known world.
“How jolly for you!” said Dolly.
“It will be a change, you know.”
“No end of a change. Is anyone going with you?”
“Well;—yes. I’ve got a travelling companion;—a very pleasant fellow, who knows a lot, and will be able to coach me up in things. There’s a deal to be learned by going abroad, you know.”
“A sort of a tutor,” said Nidderdale.
“A parson, I suppose,” said Dolly.
“Well;—he is a clergyman. Who told you?”
“It’s only my inventive genius. Well;—yes; I should say that would be nice—travelling about Europe with a clergyman. I shouldn’t get enough advantage out of it to make it pay, but I fancy it will just suit you.”
“It’s an expensive sort of thing;—isn’t it?” asked Nidderdale.
“Well;—it does cost something. But I’ve got so sick of this kind of life;—and then that railway Board coming to an end, and the club smashing up, and—”
“Marie Melmotte marrying Fisker,” suggested Dolly.
“That too, if you will. But I want a change, and a change I mean to have. I’ve seen this side of things, and now I’ll have a look at the other.”
“Didn’t you have a row in the street with someone the other day?” This question was asked very abruptly by Lord Grasslough, who, though he was sitting near them, had not yet joined in the conversation, and who had not before addressed a word to Sir Felix. “We heard something about it, but we never got the right story.” Nidderdale glanced across the table at Dolly, and Dolly whistled. Grasslough looked at the man he addressed as one does look when one expects an answer. Mr. Lupton, with whom Grasslough was dining, also sat expectant. Dolly and Nidderdale were both silent.
It was the fear of this that had kept Sir Felix away from the club. Grasslough, as he had told himself, was just the fellow to ask such a question—ill-natured, insolent, and obtrusive. But the question demanded an answer of some kind. “Yes,” said he; “a fellow attacked me in the street, coming behind me when I had a girl with me. He didn’t get much the best of it though.”
“Oh;—didn’t he?” said Grasslough. “I think, upon the whole, you know, you’re right about going abroad.”
“What business is it of yours?” asked the baronet.
“Well;—as the club is being broken up, I don’t know that it is very much the business of any of us.”
“I was speaking to my friends, Lord Nidderdale and Mr. Longestaffe, and not to you.”
“I quite appreciate the advantage of the distinction,” said Lord Grasslough, “and am sorry for Lord Nidderdale and Mr. Longestaffe.”
“What do you mean by that?” said Sir Felix, rising from his chair. His present opponent was not horrible to him as had been John Crumb, as men in clubs do not now often knock each others’ heads or draw swords one upon another.
“Don’t let’s have a quarrel here,” said Mr. Lupton. “I shall leave the room if you do.”
“If we must break up, let us break up in peace and quietness,” said Nidderdale.
“Of course, if there is to be a fight, I’m good to go out with anybody,” said Dolly. “When there’s any beastly thing to be done, I’ve always got to do it. But don’t you think that kind of thing is a little slow?”
“Who began it?” said Sir Felix, sitting down again. Whereupon Lord Grasslough, who had finished his dinner, walked out of the room. “That fellow is always wanting to quarrel.”
“There’s one comfort, you know,” said Dolly. “It wants two men to make a quarrel.”
“Yes; it does,” said Sir Felix, taking this as a friendly observation; “and I’m not going to be fool enough to be one of them.”
“Oh, yes, I meant it fast enough,” said Grasslough afterwards up in the card-room. The other men who had been together had quickly followed him, leaving Sir Felix alone, and they had collected themselves there not with the hope of play, but thinking that they would be less interrupted than in the smoking-room. “I don’t suppose we shall ever any of us be here again, and as he did come in I thought I would tell him my mind.”
“What’s the use of taking such a lot of trouble?” said Dolly. “Of course he’s a bad fellow. Most fellows are bad fellows in one way or another.”
“But he’s bad all round,” said the bitter enemy.
“And so this is to be the end of the Beargarden,” said Lord Nidderdale with a peculiar melancholy. “Dear old place! I always felt it was too good to last. I fancy it doesn’t do to make things too easy;—one has to pay so uncommon dear for them! And then, you know, when you’ve got things easy, then they get rowdy;—and, by George, before you know where you are, you find yourself among a lot of blackguards. If one wants to keep one’s self straight, one has to work
