Page:In a winter city, by Ouida.djvu/298

Rh Romeo and moonlight and poetry and all that sort of thing; Italians are the deuce and all for that, only I shouldn't have thought you'd have cared for it; and besides, you know it can't go on:—the man's a gentleman, that I grant; and, by heaven, that's a great deal now-a-days, such blackguards as we're getting,—three card scandals in the club already this very winter, and George Orme's was regular sharping, just what any cad might do, by Jove! But you know you can't go on with it; you can't possibly mean it seriously, now, do you?"

Lady Hilda laughed that little cold, contemptuous laughter which her brother always shivered under, and which Della Rocca had never heard.

"I don't seriously mean to cheat at cards! My deal? Frederic, you must say what you mean, if you mean anything at all, a little more clearly, please. Why will all Englishmen get their talk into such odd confusion? I suppose it comes of never learning grammar at Eton."

"Well, hang it then, I'll say it clearly," retorted Clairvaux, with some indignation. "Mila U 2