The
Beau dearly prized the society of the lofty, and the present visit was
an honor to Bath: hence to the Master of Ceremonies. What was better,
there would be some profitable hours with the cards and dice. So it was
that Mr. Nash smiled never more benignly than on that bright evening.
The rooms rang with the silvery voices of women and delightful laughter,
while the fiddles went merrily, their melodies chiming sweetly with the
joyance of his mood.
The skill and brazen effrontery of the ambassador's scoundrelly servant
in passing himself off for a man of condition formed the point of
departure for every conversation. It was discovered that there were but
three persons present who had not suspected him from the first; and, by
a singular paradox, the most astute of all proved to be old Mr. Bicksit,
the traveler, once a visitor at Chateaurien; for he, according to
report, had by a coup of diplomacy entrapped the impostor into an
admission that there was no such place. However, like poor Captain
Badger, the worthy old man had held his peace out of regard for the Duke
of Winterset. This nobleman, heretofore secretly disliked, suspected
of irregular devices at play, and never admired, had won admiration and
popularity by his remorse for the mistake, and by the modesty of his
attitude in endeavoring to atone for it, without presuming upon the
privilege of his rank to laugh at the indignation of society; an action
the more praiseworthy because his exposure of the impostor entailed the
disclosure of his own culpability in having stood the villain's sponsor.
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