“Nothing of the kind.”
“Or treated after some other damnable fashion, it would be very good wine, I dare say.”
“You are hard to please, my lord, today,” said Dick, who was put beyond his bearing.
“What is a man to say? If you will talk about your wine, I can only tell you what I think. Any man may get good wine—that is if he can afford to pay the price—but it isn’t one out of ten who knows how to put it on the table.” Dick felt this to be very hard. When a man pays 110s. a dozen for his champagne, and then gives it to guests like Lord Mongrober who are not even expected to return the favour, then that man ought to be allowed to talk about his wine without fear of rebuke. One doesn’t have an agreement to that effect written down on parchment and sealed; but it is as well understood and ought to be as faithfully kept as any legal contract. Dick, who could on occasions be awakened to a touch of manliness, gave the bottle a shove and threw himself back in his chair. “If you ask me, I can only tell you,” repeated Lord Mongrober.
“I don’t believe you ever had a bottle of wine put before you in better order in all your life,” said Dick. His lordship’s face became very square and very red as he looked round at his host. “And as for talking about my wine, of course I talk to a man about what he understands. I talk to Monogram about pigeons, to Tom there about politics, to Apperton and Lopez about the price of consols, and to you about wine. If I asked you what you thought of the last new book, your lordship would be a little surprised.” Lord Mongrober grunted and looked redder and squarer than ever; but he made no attempt at reply, and the victory was evidently left with Dick—very much to the general exaltation of his character. And he was proud of himself. “We had a little tiff, me and Mongrober,” he said to his wife that night. “ ’E’s a very good fellow, and of course he’s a lord and all that. But he has to be put down occasionally, and, by George, I did it tonight. You ask Lopez.”
There were two drawing-rooms upstairs, opening into each other, but still distinct. Emily had escaped into the back room, avoiding the gushing sentiments and equivocal morals of Lady Eustace and Mrs. Leslie—and here she was followed by Ferdinand Lopez. Mr. Wharton was in the front room, and though on entering it he did look round furtively for his daughter, he was ashamed to wander about in order that he might watch her. And there were others in the back room—Dick and Monogram standing on the rug, and the elder Mrs. Roby seated in a corner;—so that there was nothing peculiar in the position of the two lovers.
“Must I understand,” said he, “that I am banished from Manchester Square?”
“Has papa banished you?”
“That’s what I want you to tell me.”
“I know you had an interview with him, Mr. Lopez.”
“Yes. I had.”
“And you must know best what he told you.”
“He would explain himself better to you than he did to me.”
“I doubt that very much. Papa, when he has anything to say, generally says it plainly. However, I do think that he did intend to banish you. I do not know why I should not tell you the truth.”
“I do not know either.”
“I think he did—intend to banish you.”
“And you?”
“I shall be guided by him in all things—as far as I can.”
“Then I am banished by you also?”
“I did not say so. But if papa says that you are not to come there, of course I cannot ask you to do so.”
“But I may see you here?”
“Mr. Lopez, I will not be asked some questions. I will not indeed.”
“You know why I ask them. You know that to me you are more than all the world.” She stood still for a moment after hearing this, and then without any reply walked away into the other room. She felt half ashamed of herself in that she had not rebuked him for speaking to her in that fashion after his interview with her father, and yet his words had filled her heart with delight. He had never before plainly declared his love to her—though she had been driven by her father’s questions to declare her own love to herself. She was quite sure of herself—that the man was and would always be to her the one being whom she would prefer to all others. Her fate was in her father’s hands. If he chose to make her wretched he must do so. But on one point she had quite made up her mind. She would make no concealment. To the world at large she had nothing to say on the matter. But with her father there should be no attempt on her part to keep back the truth. Were he to question her on the subject she would tell him, as far as her memory would serve her, the very words which Lopez had spoken to her this evening. She would ask nothing from him. He had already told her that the man was to be rejected, and had refused to give any other reason than his dislike to the absence of any English connection. She would not again ask even for a reason. But she would make her father understand that though she obeyed him she regarded the exercise of his authority as tyrannical and irrational.
They left the house before any of the other guests and walked round the corner together into the Square. “What a very vulgar set of people!” said Mr. Wharton as soon as they were down the steps.
“Some of them were,” said Emily, making a mental reservation of her own.
“Upon my word I don’t know where to make the exception. Why on earth
