Spite of himself, the young man felt that he was flushed; his heart beat rapidly, and he had a buzzing in his ears, as when the blood, suddenly excited, rushes to the head.
All of a sudden, he felt a pretty smart shock to his hat.
He briskly raised his head.
Sudden as had been his movement, he could see nothing; only he heard a slight noise as if a window had been cautiously closed.
Disappointed at this second and unsuccessful attempt to perceive the person who was thus interested in him, he remained for a moment motionless; then, recollecting the ridiculousness of his position in the middle of a street, and under the eyes of people who were, perhaps, watching him from behind a window blind, he resumed his apparent coolness and indifference, and looked on the ground about him for the object which had so suddenly struck him.
He soon perceived it two or three paces from him.
This time it was not a flower. The object, whatever it was—for at first he could not be certain of it—was enveloped in paper, and tied carefully with a purple silk thread several times round the paper.
"Oh, oh!" thought the painter, picking up the little roll of paper, and rapidly hiding it in the pocket of the waistcoat which he wore under his poncho; "This complicates the matter. Are we already to write to one another? The devil! This is making rapid progress, indeed!"
He began to walk rapidly to reach his lodgings; but soon reflecting that this unaccustomed proceeding would astonish people who were in the habit of seeing him, lounging and looking about him, he checked himself, and resumed his ordinary pace.
But his hand was incessantly going to his pocket, to feel the object which he had so carefully deposited there.
"God pardon me," said he, after a time! "I believe it is a ring. Oh, oh! That would be charming! Upon, my word, I return to my first idea—I will buy a guitar, and a mantle the colour of the wall, and in making love to my beautiful unknown—for she is beautiful, I doubt not—I will forget the torments of exile. But," said he, suddenly stopping right in the middle of the square, and throwing up his arms with a desperate air, "if she is ugly! Ugly women have often extraordinary ideas which seize them, they know not why. Ah! That would be frightful! Come! What am I talking about? The devil take me, if I am not becoming stupid! She cannot be ugly, for the very simple, reason that all the Spaniards are pretty."
And reassured by this reasoning, the deduction from which was so pleasant, the young man pursued his journey.
As the reader has been in a position to perceive, Emile Gagnepain loved talking to himself—sometimes even he went to extravagant lengths—but the fault was not his. Thrown by chance in a foreign land, only speaking with difficulty the language of the people among whom he found himself, and not having near him any friend to whom he could confide his joys and his troubles, he was to some extent obliged to make a confidant of himself; so true is it that man is an eminently social animal, and that life in common is indispensable to him, through the incessant want which he experiences in each circumstance of his life, of unburdening his heart, and of sharing with some one of his own species the sweet or painful sentiments which it feels.
While he was still reflecting, the young man arrived at the house which, he occupied in common with M. Dubois.
An attendant seemed to be waiting for his arrival. As soon as he perceived the painter, he quickly approached him, and after having respectfully saluted him—
"I beg your pardon, your lordship," said he to him, "my lord duke has several times asked for you today. He has left orders that as soon as you arrive we should ask you to go to his apartment."
"Very well," he answered, "I will go there immediately."
So saying, instead of turning to the right to enter the part of the house which he occupied, he went towards the great staircase situated at the bottom of the court, and which led to the apartment of M. Dubois.
"Is it not strange," murmured he, mounting the staircase, "that this nuisance of a man, of whom I never know how to speak, should just want me at the very moment when I desire to be alone?"
M. Dubois waited for him in a large room rather richly furnished, in which he was pacing up and down, his head lowered and his arms crossed behind his back, like a man occupied with serious reflections.
As soon as he perceived the young man, he advanced rapidly towards him.
"Oh, you have come!" cried he. "For two hours I have been waiting for you. What has become of you?"
"I! Why, I have been walking. What would you have me do? Life is so short!"
"Always the same!" pursued the duke, laughing.
"I shall take good care not to change; I am too happy as I am."
"Sit down, we have to talk seriously."
"The devil!" said the young man, seating himself on a butaca.
"Why this exclamation?"
"Because your exordium appears to me to be of bad omen."
"Come, you who are so brave!"
"That's possible, but, you know, I have an unconquerable fear of politics, and it is probably of politics that you wish to talk to me."
"You have guessed it at the first trial."
"Then, I was sure of it," said he, with a despairing air.
"This is the matter on hand—"
"Pardon, could you not put off this grave conversation to a later period?"
"Why should I do so?"
"Why, because that would be so much gained for me."
"Impossible!" pursued M. Dubois, laughing; "You must take your part in it."
"Then, since it must be so," said he, with a sigh, "what is the question?"
"Here are the facts in a few words. You know that affairs are becoming more and more serious, and that the Spaniards, who, it was hoped, were conquered, have resumed a vigorous offensive, and have gained some important successes for some time past."
"I! I know nothing at all, I assure you."
"But how do you pass your time, then?"
"I have told you—I walk; I admire the works of God—which, between ourselves, I find much superior to those of men—and I am happy."
"You are a philosopher."
"I do not know."
"In a word, here is the matter in question. The Government, frightened, with reason, at the progress of the Spaniards, wish to put an end to it by uniting against them all the forces of which they can dispose."
"Very sensibly reasoned; but what can I do in all this?"
"You shall see."
"I ask nothing better."
"The Government wishes, then, to concentrate all its forces to strike a great blow. Emissaries have already been dispatched in all directions to inform the generals; but while we attack the enemy in front, it is important, in order to assure their defeat, to place them between two fires."
"That is to reason strategically, like Napoleon."
"Now, our general only is in a position to operate on the rear of the enemy, and to cut off his retreat This general is San Martin, who is now in Chili, at the head of an army of 10,000 men. Unhappily, it is excessively difficult to traverse the Spanish lines; but I have suggested to the council an infallible means of doing so."
"You