“Beautifully said!” exclaimed the Marquis.
“Not if ‘Le beau est toujours le vrai.’ My father, no inexperienced nor unwise politician, in repeating the royal words, remarked: ‘The fallacy of the Count’s argument is in its metaphor. A man is not a shore. Do you not think that the seamen on board the wrecks would be more grateful to him who did not complacently compare himself to a shore, but considered himself a human being like themselves, and risked his own life in a boat, even though it were a cockleshell, in the chance of saving theirs?”
Alain de Rochebriant was a brave man, with that intense sentiment of patriotism which characterizes Frenchmen of every rank and persuasion, unless they belong to the Internationalists; and, without pausing to consider, he cried, “Your father was right.”
The Englishman resumed: “Need I say, my dear Marquis, that I am not a Legitimist? I am not an Imperialist, neither am I an Orleanist nor a Republican. Between all those political divisions it is for Frenchmen to make their choice, and for Englishmen to accept for France that government which France has established. I view things here as a simple observer. But it strikes me that if I were a Frenchman in your position, I should think myself unworthy my ancestors if I consented to be an insignificant looker-on.”
“You are not in my position,” said the Marquis, half mournfully, half haughtily, “and you can scarcely judge of it even in imagination.”
“I need not much task my imagination; I judge of it by analogy. I was very much in your position when I entered upon what I venture to call my career; and it is the curious similarity between us in circumstances, that made me wish for your friendship when that similarity was made known to me by Lemercier, who is not less garrulous than the true Parisian usually is. Permit me to say that, like you, I was reared in some pride of no inglorious ancestry. I was reared also in the expectation of great wealth. Those expectations were not realized: my father had the fault of noble natures—generosity pushed to imprudence: he died poor and in debt. You retain the home of your ancestors; I had to resign mine.”
The Marquis had felt deeply interested in this narrative, and as Graham now paused, took his hand and pressed it. “One of our most eminent personages said to me about that time, ‘Whatever a clever man of your age determines to do or to be, the odds are twenty to one that he has only to live on in order to do or to be it.’ Don’t you think he spoke truly? I think so.”
“I scarcely know what to think,” said Rochebriant; “I feel as if you had given me so rough a shake when I was in the midst of a dull dream, that I am not yet quite sure whether I am asleep or awake.”
Just as he said this, and towards the Paris end of the Champs Elysees, there was a halt, a sensation among the loungers round them; many of them uncovered in salute.
A man on the younger side of middle age, somewhat inclined to corpulence, with a very striking countenance, was riding slowly by. He returned the salutations he received with the careless dignity of a Personage accustomed to respect, and then reined in his horse by the side of a barouche, and exchanged some words with a portly gentleman who was its sole occupant. The loungers, still halting, seemed to contemplate this parley—between him on horseback and him in the carriage—with very eager interest. Some put their hands behind their ears and pressed forward, as if trying to overhear what was said.
“I wonder,” quoth Graham, “whether, with all his cleverness, the Prince has in any way decided what he means to do or to be.”
“The Prince!” said Rochebriant, rousing himself from revery; “what Prince?”
“Do you not recognize him by his wonderful likeness to the first Napoleon—him on horseback talking to Louvier, the great financier.”
“Is that stout bourgeois in the carriage Louvier—my mortgagee, Louvier?”
“Your mortgagee, my dear Marquis? Well, he is rich enough to be a very lenient one upon pay-day.”
“Hein!—I doubt his leniency,” said Alain. “I have promised my avoue to meet him at dinner. Do you think I did wrong?”
“Wrong! of course not; he is likely to overwhelm you with civilities. Pray don’t refuse if he gives you an invitation to his soiree next Saturday; I am going to it. One meets there the notabilities most interesting to study—artists, authors, politicians, especially those who call themselves Republicans. He and the Prince agree in one thing; namely, the cordial reception they give to the men who would destroy the state of things upon which Prince and financier both thrive. Hillo! here comes Lemercier on return from the Bois.”
Lemercier’s coupe stopped beside the footpath. “What tidings of the Belle Inconnue?” asked the Englishman. “None; she was not there. But I am rewarded: such an adventure! a dame of the haute volee; I believe she is a duchess. She was walking with a lap-dog, a pure Pomeranian. A strange poodle flew at the Pomeranian, I drove off the poodle, rescued the Pomeranian, received the most gracious thanks, the sweetest smile: femme superbe, middle aged. I prefer women of forty. Au revoir, I am due at the club.”
Alain felt a sensation of relief that Lemercier had not seen the lady in the pearl-coloured dress, and quitted the Englishman with a lightened heart.
CHAPTER IV.
“Piccola, piccola! com e cortese! another invitation from M. Louvier for next Saturday—conversazione.” This was said in Italian by an elderly lady bursting noisily into the room—elderly, yet with a youthful expression of face, owing perhaps to a pair of very vivacious black eyes. She was dressed, after a somewhat slatternly fashion, in a wrapper of crimson merino much the worse for wear, a blue handkerchief twisted turban-like round her head, and her feet encased in list slippers. The person to whom she addressed herself was a young lady with dark hair, which, despite its evident repugnance, was restrained into smooth glossy braids over the forehead, and at the crown of the small graceful head into the simple knot which Horace has described as “Spartan.” Her dress contrasted the speaker’s by an exquisite neatness.
We have seen her before as the lady in the pearl-coloured robe; but seen now at home she looks much younger. She was one of those whom, encountered in the streets or in society, one might guess to be married—probably a young bride; for thus seen there was about her an air of dignity and of self-possession which suits well with the ideal of chaste youthful matronage; and in the expression of the face there was a pensive thoughtfulness beyond her years. But as she now sat by the open window arranging flowers in a glass bowl, a book lying open on her lap, you would never have said, “What a handsome woman!” you would have said, “What a charming girl!” All about her was maidenly, innocent, and fresh. The dignity of her bearing was lost in household ease, the pensiveness of her expression in an untroubled serene sweetness.
Perhaps many of my readers may have known friends engaged in some absorbing cause of thought, and who are in the habit when they go out, especially if on solitary walks, to take that cause of thought with them. The friend may be an orator meditating his speech, a poet his verses, a lawyer a difficult case, a physician an intricate malady. If you have such a friend, and you observe him thus away from his home, his face will seem to you older and graver. He is absorbed in the care that weighs on him. When you see him in a holiday moment at his own fireside, the care is thrown aside; perhaps he mastered while abroad the difficulty that had troubled him; he is cheerful, pleasant, sunny. This appears to be very much the case with persons of genius. When in their own houses we usually find them very playful and childlike. Most persons of real genius, whatever they may seem out of doors, are very sweet-tempered at home, and sweet temper is sympathizing and genial in the intercourse of private life. Certainly, observing this girl as she now bends over the flowers, it would be difficult