The curate, plump "Holy Bill," was well known to be fading away, slowly and beautifully, but quite surely, on her account.

Grumper's old pal, General Harringport, had confided to Dam himself in the smoking-room, one very late night, that since he was fifty years too old for hope of success in that direction he'd go solitary to his lonely grave (here a very wee hiccup), damn his eyes, so he would, unwed, unloved, uneverything.

Very trag( h)ic, but such was life, the General had declared, the one alleviation being the fact that he might die any night now, and ought to have done so a decade ago.
Why, even the little useless snob and tuft-hunter, the Haddock, that tailor's dummy and parody of a man, cast sheep's eyes and made what he called "love" to her when down from Oxford (and was duly snubbed for it and for his wretched fopperies, snobberies, and folly).

He'd have to put the Haddock across his knee one of these days.
Then there was his old school pal and Sandhurst senior, Ormonde Delorme, who frequently stayed at, and had just left, Monksmead -- fairly dotty about her.

She certainly liked Delorme--and no wonder, so handsome, clever, accomplished, and so fine a gentleman.
Rich, too.