It would almost pull your brougham.
Or a Persian greyhound, eh? (I propose, if you please); or a little pug that would go into one of Lord Steyne's snuff-boxes?
There's a man at Bayswater got one with such a nose that you might--I mark the king and play--that you might hang your hat on it."
"I mark the trick," Rawdon gravely said.
He attended to his game commonly and didn't much meddle with the conversation, except when it was about horses and betting.
"What CAN you want with a shepherd's dog?" the lively little Southdown continued.
"I mean a MORAL shepherd's dog," said Becky, laughing and looking up at Lord Steyne.
"What the devil's that?" said his Lordship.
"A dog to keep the wolves off me," Rebecca continued. "A companion."
"Dear little innocent lamb, you want one," said the marquis; and his jaw thrust out, and he began to grin hideously, his little eyes leering towards Rebecca.
The great Lord of Steyne was standing by the fire sipping coffee.
The fire crackled and blazed pleasantly.
There was a score of candles sparkling round the mantel piece, in all sorts of quaint sconces, of gilt and bronze and porcelain.
They lighted up Rebecca's figure to admiration, as she sat on a sofa covered with a pattern of gaudy flowers.
She was in a pink dress that looked as fresh as a rose; her dazzling white arms and shoulders were half-covered with a thin hazy scarf through which they sparkled; her hair hung in curls round her neck; one of her little feet peeped out from the fresh crisp folds of the silk: the prettiest little foot in the prettiest little sandal in the finest silk stocking in the world.
The candles lighted up Lord Steyne's shining bald head, which was fringed with red hair.
He had thick bushy eyebrows, with little twinkling bloodshot eyes, surrounded by a thousand wrinkles.
His jaw was underhung, and when he laughed, two white buck-teeth protruded themselves and glistened savagely in the midst of the grin.
He had been dining with royal personages, and wore his garter and ribbon.
A short man was his Lordship, broad-chested and bow-legged, but proud of the fineness of his foot and ankle, and always caressing his garter-knee.
"And so the shepherd is not enough," said he, "to defend his lambkin?"
"The shepherd is too fond of playing at cards and going to his clubs," answered Becky, laughing.
"'Gad, what a debauched Corydon!" said my lord--"what a mouth for a pipe!"
"I take your three to two," here said Rawdon, at the card-table.
"Hark at Meliboeus," snarled the noble marquis; "he's pastorally occupied too: he's shearing a Southdown. What an innocent mutton, hey?
Damme, what a snowy fleece!"
Rebecca's eyes shot out gleams of scornful humour.
"My lord," she said, "you are a knight of the Order."
He had the collar round his neck, indeed--a gift of the restored princes of Spain.
Lord Steyne in early life had been notorious for his daring and his success at play.
He had sat up two days and two nights with Mr. Fox at hazard.
He had won money of the most august personages of the realm: he had won his marquisate, it was said, at the gaming-table; but he did not like an allusion to those bygone fredaines.
Rebecca saw the scowl gathering over his heavy brow.
She rose up from her sofa and went and took his coffee cup out of his hand with a little curtsey.
"Yes," she said, "I must get a watchdog.
But he won't bark at YOU."
And, going into the other drawing-room, she sat down to the piano and began to sing little French songs in such a charming, thrilling voice that the mollified nobleman speedily followed her into that chamber, and might be seen nodding his head and bowing time over her.
Rawdon and his friend meanwhile played ecarte until they had enough.
The Colonel won; but, say that he won ever so much and often, nights like these, which occurred many times in the week--his wife having all the talk and all the admiration, and he sitting silent without the circle, not comprehending a word of the jokes, the allusions, the mystical language within--must have been rather wearisome to the ex-dragoon.
"How is Mrs. Crawley's husband?" Lord Steyne used to say to him by way of a good day when they met; and indeed that was now his avocation in life.
He was Colonel Crawley no more. He was Mrs. Crawley's husband.
About the little Rawdon, if nothing has been said all this while, it is because he is hidden upstairs in a garret somewhere, or has crawled below into the kitchen for companionship.
His mother scarcely ever took notice of him.
He passed the days with his French bonne as long as that domestic remained in Mr. Crawley's family, and when the Frenchwoman went away, the little fellow, howling in the loneliness of the night, had compassion taken on him by a housemaid, who took him out of his solitary nursery into her bed in the garret hard by and comforted him.
Rebecca, my Lord Steyne, and one or two more were in the drawing-room taking tea after the opera, when this shouting was heard overhead.
"It's my cherub crying for his nurse," she said. She did not offer to move to go and see the child.
"Don't agitate your feelings by going to look for him," said Lord Steyne sardonically.
"Bah!" replied the other, with a sort of blush, "he'll cry himself to sleep"; and they fell to talking about the opera.
Rawdon had stolen off though, to look after his son and heir; and came back to the company when he found that honest Dolly was consoling the child.
The Colonel's dressing-room was in those upper regions. He used to see the boy there in private.