The seats on each side of the table were occupied by persons
consuming, with a heedless air, delicacies for which they had
no appetite; while the conversation in general consisted of
flying phrases referring to the impending event of the great
day that had already dawned.
"Come from Lady St Julian's, Fitz?" said a youth of very
tender years, and whose fair visage was as downy and as
blooming as the peach from which with a languid air he
withdrew his lips to make this inquiry of the gentleman with
the cane.
"Yes; why were not you there?"
"I never go anywhere," replied the melancholy Cupid,
"everything bores me so."
"Well, will you go to Epsom with us to-morrow, Alfred?" said
Lord Fitzheron. "I take Berners and Charles Egremont, and
with you our party will be perfect."
"I feel so cursed blas‚!" exclaimed the boy in a tone of
elegant anguish.
"It will give you a fillip, Alfred," said Mr Berners; "do you
all the good in the world."
"Nothing can do me good," said Alfred, throwing away his
almost untasted peach, "I should be quite content if anything
could do me harm. Waiter, bring me a tumbler of Badminton."
"And bring me one too," sighed out Lord Eugene De Vere, who
was a year older than Alfred Mountchesney, his companion and
brother in listlessness.
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