EVAN HARRINGTON; or, HE WOULD BE A GENTLEMAN.
BY GEORGE MEREDITH.
CHAPTER XL.IN WHICH THE COUNTESS STILL SCENTS GAME.
Mr. John Raikes and his friend Frank Remand, surnamed Franco, to suit the requirements of metre, in which they habitually conversed, were walking arm-in-arm along the drive in Society’s Park on a fine frosty Sunday afternoon of midwinter. The quips and jokes of Franco were lively, and he looked into the carriages passing, as if he knew that a cheerful countenance is not without charms for their inmates. Jack’s face, on the contrary, was barren and bleak. Being of that nature that when a pun was made he must perforce outstrip it, he fell into Franco’s humour from time to time, but albeit aware that what he uttered was good, and by comparison transcendent, he refused to enjoy it. Nor when Franco started from his arm to declaim a passage, did he do other than make limp efforts to unite himself to Franco again. A further sign of immense depression in him was that instead of the creative, it was the critical faculty he exercised, and rather than reply to Franco in his form of speech, he scanned occasional lines and objected to particular phrases. He had clearly exchanged the sanguine for the bilious temperament, and was fast stranding on the rocky shores of prose. Franco bore this very well, for he, like Jack in happier days, claimed all the glances of lovely woman as his own, and on his right there flowed a stream of beauties. At last he was compelled to observe: “This change is sudden: wherefore so downcast? With tigrine claw thou manglest my speech, thy cheeks are like December’s pippin, and thy tongue most sour!”
“Then of it make a farce!” said Jack, for the making of farces was Franco’s profession.
“Wherefore so downcast! What a line!