And now let us to a more hearty breakfast, and back again to town.
I must show myself today with a lordly grace, and prove to all the
world that I need shrink from no man's gaze. As for yon black bull,
be sure he will breathe no word of this thing. It would ill mate
with his pride for the world to know that he had been spitted like
a capon by one whom he has dared to gibe at as the white hind of
the forest!"
Lord Claud's mood had completely changed. He was gay and merry, and
eager after pleasure. He took Tom hither and thither to half a
dozen fine houses, where the ladies gazed with a certain awestruck
admiration at this "untamed son of the woods," as it pleased Lord
Claud to call him, whilst they loaded with favours the brilliant
young spark, who seemed, when in the mood, to have power to win all
hearts.
He was a "dear tormenting devil," or a "mad fellow, but withal a
true Prince Charming;" and just as he talked sound sense and
politics with the poet yesterday, so now he beat even the finest of
the ladies and their beaux at high-flown nonsense about goddesses
and heroes, and the Arcadian bowers where they made a pretence of
living and moving.
At the play, to which they went later, he moved from box to box,
from tier to tier, taking snuff with the men, saying charming
nothings to the ladies; the centre always of a laughing throng,
whose proximity must surely have been distressful to any persons so
unfashionable as to desire to listen to what the actors were
saying.
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