"En paroles ou en actions, être discret, c'est s'abstenir."
"En paroles ou en actions, être discret, c'est s'abstenir."
It is to be presumed that the reader knows the usual result of such a tussle with the conscience as that upon which I now entered. At various turning points in a chequered career I have met my conscience thus face to face, and am honest enough to confess that the victory has not always fallen to that ghostly monitor.
After favouring me with his ultimatum, the Vicomte looked at me expectantly. I thought of Mademoiselle de Clericy's presence in that old house. Who was I to turn my back on the good things that the gods gave me? I hate your timid man who looks behind him on an unknown road.
"As Monsieur wills," I said, and with a sigh, almost of relief I thought, my companion rose.
"We will seek the Vicomtesse," he said. "My wife will have pleasure in making your acquaintance. And to-morrow you shall have my answer."
"Ah!" thought I; "the Vicomtesse decides it."
And I followed Monsieur de Clericy towards the door.
"It is half-past eleven," he said, looking at his modest silver watch. "We shall find Madame in her boudoir."
This apartment, it appeared, was situated beyond the drawing-room, of which we now passed the door. Below us was the great square hall, dark and gloomy; for its windows had been heavily barred in the old stirring times, and but little light filtered through the ironwork. At the head of the stairs was a gallery completely surrounding the quadrangle, and from this gallery access was gained to all the dwelling rooms.
The Vicomte tapped at the door of Madame's room, and without waiting for an answer passed in. I, having purposely lingered, did not hear the few words spoken upon the threshold, and only advanced when bidden to do so by my companion.
"MONSIEUR HOWARD NATURALLY WISHED TO BE PRESENTED TO YOU.""MONSIEUR HOWARD NATURALLY WISHED TO BE PRESENTED TO YOU."
An elderly lady stood by the window, having just risen from the broad seat thereof, which was littered with the trifles of a lady's work-basket. The Vicomtesse was obviously many years younger than her husband—a trim woman of fifty or thereabouts, with crinkled grey hair and the clear brown complexion of the Provençale. Beneath the grey hair there looked out at me the cleverest eyes I have ever seen in a human head. I bowed, madesuddenly aware that I stood in the presence of an individuality, near an oasis—as it were—in the dreary desert of human commonplace. And strange to say, at the same moment my conscience laid itself down to sleep. Madame la Vicomtesse de Clericy was a woman capable of guarding those near and dear to her.
"Monsieur Howard," explained her husband, looking at me, with his white fingers nervously intertwined, "is desirous of filling the post left vacant by the departure of our friend Charles Miste. We have had a little talk on affairs. It is possible that we may come to a mutually satisfactory arrangement. Monsieur Howard naturally wished to be presented to you."
Madame bowed, her clear dark eyes resting almost musingly on my face. She waited for me to speak, whereas nine women out of ten would have broken silence.
"I have explained to Monsieur le Vicomte," I hastened to say, "that I have none of the requisite qualifications for the post, and that my female relatives—my aunts, in fact—looked upon me as amauvais sujet."
She smiled, and her eyes sought the lace-work held in her busy fingers. Mademoiselle de Clericy had, I remembered, worn a piece of such dainty needlework at her throat on the previous morning.I learnt to look for that piece of ever-growing lace-work in later days. Madame was never without it, and worked quaint patterns, learnt in a convent on the pine-clad slopes of Var.
"Monsieur Howard," went on the Vicomte, "is a gentleman of position in his own country on the east coast of England. He has, however, had a difference—a difference with his father."
The eyes were raised to my face for a brief moment.
"In the matter of a marriage of convenience," I added, giving the plain truth on the impulse of the moment, or under the influence, perhaps, of Madame de Clericy's glance. Then I recollected that this was a different story from that tale of a monetary difficulty which I had related to Madame's husband ten minutes earlier. I glanced at him to see whether he had noticed the discrepancy, but was instantly relieved of my anxiety, so completely was the old man absorbed in an affectionate and somewhat humble contemplation of his wife. It was easy to see how matters stood in the Clericy household, and I conceived a sudden feeling of relief that so delicate a flower as Mademoiselle de Clericy should have so capable a guardian in the person of her mother. Evil takes that shape in which it is first held up to our vision. Incompetent and careless mothers are in fact criminals. Mademoiselle de Clericy had one near to her who could at all events clothe necessary knowledge in a reassuring garment.
"A marriage of convenience," repeated Madame, speaking for the first time. "It is so easy to be mistaken in such matters, is it not?"
"As easy for the one as for the other, Madame," replied I. "And it was I, and not my father, who was most intimately concerned."
She looked at me with a little upward nod of the head and a slow, wise smile. One never knows whence some women gather their knowledge of the world.
"Monsieur knows Paris?" she asked.
"As an Englishman, Madame."
"Then you only know the worst," was her comment.
She did not ask me to be seated. It was, I suspected, the hour for déjeûner. For this household was evidently one to adhere to old-fashioned customs. There was something homelike about this pleasant lady. Her presence in a room gave to the atmosphere something refined and womanly, which was new to one who, like myself, had lived mostly among men. Indeed, my companions of former days—no saints, I admit—would have been surprised could they have seen me bowing and makingcongésto this elderly lady like a dancingmaster. Moreover, the post I sought was lapsing into a domestic situation, for which my antecedents eminently unfitted me, nor did I pretend to think otherwise. Had I reached the age of discretion? Is there indeed such an age? I have seen old men and women who make one doubt it. At thirty-one does a man begin to range himself? "Ah, well!" thought I, "vogue la galère." I had made a beginning, and in Norfolk they do not breed men who leave a quest half accomplished.
For a moment I waited, and Madame seemed to have nothing more to say. I had not at that time, nor indeed have I since, acquired that polish of the world which takes the form of a brilliant, and I suspect insincere, manner in society. I had no compliments ready. I therefore took my leave.
The Vicomte accompanied me to the top of the stairs, and there made sure that the servants were awaiting my departure in the hall.
"To-morrow morning," he said, with a friendly touch on my arm, "you shall have my answer."
With this news then I returned to my comfortable quarters in John Turner'sappartementin the Avenue d'Antan. I found that great banker about to partake of luncheon, which was served to him at midday, after the fashion of the country of his adoption. During my walk across the river and through the gardens of the Tuileries—at that timeat the height of their splendour—I had not reflected very deeply on the matter in hand. I had thought more of Mademoiselle de Clericy's bright eyes than aught else.
"Good morning," said my host, whom I had not seen before going out. "Where have you been?"
"To the Vicomte de Clericy's."
"The devil you have! Then you are not so stolid as you look."
And he laughed as he shook out his table napkin. His thought was only half with me, for he was looking at the menu.
"Arcachon oysters!" he added; "the best in the world! I hate your bloated natives. Give me a small oyster."
"Give me a dozen," I answered, helping myself from the dish at my elbow.
"And did the Vicomte kick you downstairs?" asked my host, as he compounded in the dip of his plate a wonderful mixture of vinegar and spices.
"No. He is going to consider my application, and will give me his answer to-morrow morning."
John Turner set down the vinegar bottle and looked across the table at me with an expression of wonder on his broad face.
"Well, I never! Did you see Madame? Clever woman, Madame. Gives excellent dinners."
"Yes; I was presented to her."
"Ah! A match for you, Mr. Dick. Did you notice her feet?"
"I noticed that they were well shod."
"Just so!" muttered John Turner, who was now engaged in gastronomic delights. "In France a clever woman is alwaysbien chaussée. Her brains run to her toes. In England it is different. If a woman has a brain it undermines her morals or ruins her waist."
"Only the plain women," suggested I, who had passed several seasons in London not altogether in vain.
"A pretty woman is never clever—she is too wise," said John Turner, stolidly, and he sipped his chablis.
The mysterious sauce with which this great gastronome flavoured his oysters was now prepared, while I, it must be confessed, had consumed my portion, and John Turner relapsed into silence. I watched him as he ate delicately, slowly, with a queer refinement. Many are ready to talk of some crafts under the name of art, which must now, forsooth, be spelt with a capital letter—why, I know no more than the artists. John Turner had his Art, and now exercised it. I always noticed that during the earlier and more piquant courses of a meal he was cynical and apt to give speech onmatters of human meanness and vanity not unknown to many who are silent about them. Later on, when the dishes became more succulent, so would his views of life sweeten and acquire a mellower flavour. His round face now began to beam more pleasantly at me across the well-served table, like a rich autumn moon rising over a fat land.
"Pity it is," he said, as he placed a lamb cutlet on my plate, "that you and your father cannot agree."
"Pity that the guv'nor is so unreasonable," I answered.
"I do not suppose there is any question of reason on either side," rejoined my companion, with a laugh. "But I think you might make a little more allowance. You must remember that we old fellows are not so wise and experienced as our youngers and betters. I know he is a hot-blooded old reprobate—that father of yours. I thumped him at Eton for it half a century ago. And you're a worthy son to him, I make no doubt—you have his great chin. But you are all he has, Dick—don't forget that now and remember it too late. Have another cutlet?"
"Thanks."
"Gad! I'd give five hundred a year for your appetite and digestion. Think of that old man, my boy, down in Norfolk at this time of year, withnobody to swear at but the servants. Norfolk is just endurable in October, when game and 'longshore herrings are in. But now—with lamb getting muttony—poor old chap!"
"Well," I answered, "he could not eat me if I was at home. But I'll go back in the autumn. I generally make it up before the First."
"What a beautiful thing is filial love," murmured my companion, with a stout sigh, as he turned his attention to the matter of importance on the plate before him; and indeed—with its handicap of fifty years—I think his appetite put my hearty craving for food to shame.
We talked of other things for a while—of matters connected with the gay town in which we found ourselves. We discussed the merits of the wine before us, and it was not until later in the course of the repast that John Turner again reverted to my affairs. If these portions of our talk alone are reported, the reader must kindly remember that they are at all events relevant to the subject, however unworthy, of this narrative.
"So," said my stout companion when the coffee was served, "you are tricking the father so that you may make love to the daughter?"
This view of the matter did not commend itself to my hearing. Indeed, the truth so often gives offence that it is no wonder so few deal in it. Aquick answer was on my tongue, but fortunately remained there. I—who had never been too difficult in such matters—did not like something in my friend's voice that savoured of disrespect towards Mademoiselle de Clericy. In a younger man I might have been tempted to allow such a hint to develop into something stronger which would offer me the satisfaction of throwing the speaker down the stairs. But John Turner was not a man to quarrel with, even when one was in the wrong. So I kept silence and burnt my lips at my coffee cup.
"Well," he went on placidly, "Mademoiselle Lucille is a pretty girl."
"Lucille," I said. "Is that her name?"
He cocked his eye at me across the table.
"Yes—a pretty name, eh?"
"It is," I answered him, with steady eyes. "I never heard a prettier."
"Rêver c'est le bonheur; attendre c'est la vie."
"Rêver c'est le bonheur; attendre c'est la vie."
The Vicomte de Clericy's answer was favourable to my suit, and I duly received permission to install myself in the apartments lately vacated by Charles Miste—whoever he may have been.
"And what, sir, is to become of me?" inquired my servant, when I instructed him to pack my clothes and made known to him my movements in the immediate future. I had forgotten Loomer. A secretary could scarcely come into residence attended by a valet, rejoicing in the usual direct or indirect emoluments, and possessing that abnormal appetite which only belongs to the man servant living in the kitchen. I told him, therefore, that his future was entirely his own, and that while his final fate was unquestionable, the making of his earthly career remained, for the present, in his own hands. In fact, I gave him permission to commence at once his descent to that bourne whither, I feared, his footsteps would tend.
Mr. Loomer was good enough to evince signs ofemotion, and from a somewhat confused speech, I gathered that he refused to go to Avernus until he could make the journey in my service and at my heels. Ultimately it was agreed, however, that he should seek a temporary situation—he was a man of many talents, and as handy in the stable as in a gentleman's dressing-room—and remain therein until I should require his services again. As it happened, I had sufficient ready cash to pay him his wages, with an additional sum to compensate for the brevity of his notice to quit a sorry service. He took the money without surprise. It is surely a sign of good breeding to receive one's due with no astonishment.
"Can't you keep me on, sir?" he pleaded a last time, when I had proved by a gift of a pair of hunting boots (which were too small for me) that we really were about to part.
"My good Loomer, I am going into service myself. I always said I could black a boot better than you."
As I left the room I heard the worthy domestic mutter something about "pretty work," and "a Howard of Hopton," and made no doubt that he regretted less the fall of my ancestral dignity than the loss to himself of a careless and easily robbed master. At all events I had been under the impression that I possessed a fuller store of linen thanthat which emerged from my travel-stained trunks when these were unpacked later in the day in the Rue des Palmiers.
As for that matter of ancestral dignity, it gave me no trouble. Such a possession comes, I think, to little harm while a man keeps it in his own hands, and only falls to pieces when it gets into the grasp of a bad woman. Have we not seen half a dozen, nay, a dozen, such débâcles in our own time? And I contend that the degenerate scion of a great house who goes to the wrong side of the footlights for his wife is a criminal, and deserves all that may befall him. I bade my friend, John Turner, farewell, he standing stoutly in his smoking-room after luncheon, and prophesying a discouraging and darksome future for one so headstrong.
"You're going to the devil," he said, "though you think you are running after an angel."
"I am going to earn my own livelihood," answered I, with a laugh, lighting the last excellent cigar I was to have from his box for some time, "and make my idle ancestors turn in their graves. I am going to draw emoluments of not less than one hundred and fifty pounds per annum."
I drove across the river with my simple baggage, and was in due course installed in my apartments. With these there was no fault to find—indeed, they were worthy of a better inmate. A large and airybedroom looking out over the garden where the foliage, as I have said, had none of the mournful sables worn by the trees in London. The room was beautifully furnished. Even one who knew more of saddles than of Buhl and Empire could see that at a glance. Moreover, I noted that every ornament or handle of brass shone like gold.
"Madame's eyes have been here," thought I; "the clever eyes."
Adjacent to the bedroom was the study, which the Vicomte had pointed out as being assigned to his secretary—adjoining as it did the room whither he himself retired at times—not, as I suspected, to engage in any great labours there.
While I was in my bedroom, the smart young Paris servant came in, looked carelessly at my trunks, and was for withdrawing, when I stopped him.
"Is it the buckles you are afraid of?" I said. "Beware rather of the strap."
Therewith I threw my keys on the table before him and went into my study. When I revisited my room later I found everything neatly placed within the drawers and the empty trunks removed.
There were upon my study table a number of books and papers, placed there with such evident intention that I took cognizance of them, judging them to be the accounts rendered by the Vicomte'svarious estates. So far as a cursory examination could prove it, I judged that we had to deal with but clumsy scoundrels, and in France in those days scoundrels were of fine fleur, I can tell you, while every sort of villainy flourished there.
I was engaged with these books when the Vicomte entered, after knocking at the door. He referred to this courteous precaution by a little gesture indicating the panel upon which his knuckle had sounded.
"You see," he said, "this room is yours. Let us begin as we intend to go on."
If I was a queer secretary, here at all events was an uncommon master.
We fell to work at once, and one or two questions requiring immediate investigation came under discussion. I told him my opinion of his stewards; for I hated to see an old man so cheated. I lived, it will be remembered, in a glass house, and naturally was forever reaching my hand towards a stone. The Vicomte laughed in his kindly way at what he was pleased to term my high-handedness.
"Mon Dieu!" he cried; "what a grasp of steel. But they will be surprised—the bourgeois. I have always been so tolerant. I have ruled by kindness."
"He who rules by kindness is the slave of thieves," I answered, penning the letter we had decided to indite.
The Vicomte laughed and shrugged his shoulders.
"Well," he said, "so long as we begin as we intend to go on."
Such in any case was the beginning, and this my introduction to the duties I had undertaken. They seemed simple enough, and especially so to one who was no novice at the administration of an estate. For my father, in his softer moments—when, in fact, he had been brought to recognize that my vices were at least hereditary—had initiated me into the working of a great landed holding.
At seven o'clock we dined. Mademoiselle wore a white dress with a broad yellow ribbon round her girlish waist. Her sleeves—I suppose it was the fashion of the period—were wide and flowing, and her arms and hands were those of a child.
Madame de Clericy, I remember, did not talk much, saying little more, indeed, than such polite words as her position of hostess rendered necessary. The burden of the conversation rested chiefly with her aged husband, who sustained it simply and cheerily. His chief aim at this, and indeed at all times, seemed to be to establish an agreeable and mutual ease. I have seldom seen in a man, and especially in an old man, such consideration for the feelings of others.
Lucille's clear laugh was ever ready to welcomesome little pleasantry, and she joined occasionally in the talk. I listened more to the voice than to the words. Her gay humour found something laughable in remarks that sounded grave enough, and I suddenly felt a hundred years old. As she walked demurely into the dining-room on her father's arm, I thought in truth that she would rather have skipped and run thither.
During dinner mention was made of the Baron Giraud, and I learnt that that financier was among the Vicomte's friends. The name was not new to me, although the Baron's personality was unknown.
The Baron was one of the mushrooms of that day—a nobleman of finance, a true product of Paris, highly respected and honoured there. John Turner knew him well, and was ponderously silent respecting him.
"But why," asked Lucille, when her father had delivered a little oration in favour of the rich man, "does Monsieur Giraud dye his hair?"
There was a little laugh and a silence at this display of naïve wisdom. Then it was Madame who spoke.
"No doubt he feels himself unworthy to wear it white," she said, rising from the table.
I was given to understand that the remainder of the evening was my own, and the Vicomte himself showed me the small staircase descending from thepassage between my study and his own, and presented me with a key to the door at the foot of it. This door, he explained, opened to a small passage running between the Rue des Palmiers and the Rue Courte. It would serve me for egress and entry at any time without reference to the servants or disturbance to the house.
"I would not give the key to the first comer," he added.
I learnt later that he and I alone had access to the door of which the servants had no key, nor ever passed there. The same evening I availed myself of my privilege and went to my club, where over a foolish game of chance I won a year's salary.
Such was the beginning of my career in the service of the Vicomte de Clericy. During the weeks that followed I found that there was, in fact, plenty for me to do were the estates to be properly worked—to be administered as we Englishmen are called upon to treat our property to-day, that is to say, like a sponge, to be squeezed to its last drop. I soon discovered that the Vicomte was in the hands of old-fashioned stewards, who, besides feathering their own nests, were not making the best of the land. My conscience, it must be admitted, was at work again—and I had thought it finally vanquished.
Here was I, admitted to the Hôtel Clericy—welcomed in the family circle, and trusted there in the immediate vicinity of and with daily access to as innocent and trusting a soul as ever stepped from a French convent. I—a wolf who had not hitherto even troubled to cover my shaggy sides with a fleece. What could I do? Lucille was so gay, so confiding, in a pretty girlish way which never altered as we came to know each other better. Madame was so placid and easy-going—in her stout black silk dress, with her lace-work. Monsieur de Clericy gave me his confidence so unreservedly—what could I do but lapse into virtue? And I venture to think that many a blacker sheep than myself would have blanched in the midst of so pure a flock.
One evening Madame asked me to join the family circle in the drawing-room. The room was very pretty and homelike—quite unlike our grim drawing-room at Hopton, where my father never willingly set foot since its rightful owner had passed elsewhere. There were flowers in abundance—their scent filled the air—from the Var estate in Provence, which had been Madame's home and formed part of thedotshe brought into the diminishing Clericy coffers. Two lamps illuminated the room rather dimly, and a pair of candles stood on the piano.
"YOU ARE SAD," SAID LUCILLE, WITH A LITTLE LAUGH, "WITH YOUR FACE IN YOUR HAND COMME ÇA.""YOU ARE SAD," SAID LUCILLE, WITH A LITTLE LAUGH, "WITH YOUR FACE IN YOUR HAND COMME ÇA."
Monsieur de Clericy played a game at bezique with Madame, who chuckled a good deal at her own mistakes with the cards, and then asked Lucille for some music. The girl sat down at the piano, and there, to her own accompaniment, without the printed score, sang such songs of Provence as tug at the heart strings, one knows not why. There seemed to be a wail in the music—and in slurring, as it were, from one note to the other—a trick such Southern songs demand—I heard the tone I loved.
Madame listened while she worked. The Vicomte dropped gently to sleep. I sat with my elbow on my knee and looked at the carpet. And when the voice rose and fell, I knew that none other had the same message for me.
"You are sad," said Lucille, with a little laugh, "with your face in your hand, comme ça."
And she imitated my position and expression with a merry toss of the head. "Are you thinking of your sins?"
"Yes, Mademoiselle," answered I, truthfully enough.
Many evenings I passed thus in the peaceful family circle—and always Lucille sang those gaily sad little songs of Provence.
The weeks slipped by, and the outer world was busy with great doings, while we in the Rue desPalmiers seemed to stand aside and watch the events go past.
The Emperor—than whom no greater man lived at the middle of the present century—was losing health, and, with that best of human gifts, his grasp over his fellowmen. The dogs were beginning to collect—the dogs that are ever in readiness to fall on the stricken lion.
I marvelled to discover how little the Vicomte interested himself in politics. One other discovery only did I make respecting my patron; I found that he loved money.
My conscience, as I have said, was busy at this time, and the burden of my deception began to weigh upon my mind as if I had been a mere schoolboy, and no man of the world. I might, however, have borne the burden easily enough if chance had not favoured the right.
I was one morning writing in Monsieur de Clericy's study, when the door was impetuously thrown open and Lucille came running in. "Ah!" she said, stopping, "only you."
"That is all, Mademoiselle."
She was turning to go when on an impulse of the moment I called to her.
"Mademoiselle!" She turned and slowly came back. With a little laugh she stood in front of me seated at the great table. She took up a quill pen,which I had laid aside a moment earlier, and played with it.
"What are you writing?" she asked, looking down at the papers before me—"your own history?"
As she spoke the pen escaped from her fingers and fell upon my papers, leaving ink stains there.
"There," she cried, with a laugh of mock despair, "I have spoilt your life."
"No; but you have altered its appearance," I answered. "Mademoiselle, I have something to say to you. When I came here I deceived your father. I told him that I was ruined—that my father had disowned me—that I was forced to earn my own livelihood. It was untrue—I shall one day be as rich as your father."
"Then why did you come here?" asked the girl, for a moment grave.
"To be near you."
And she broke into a laugh, shaking her head.
"I saw you in the crowd at the Fête Napoleon—I heard your voice. There is no one in the world like you. I fell in love, Mademoiselle."
Still she laughed, as if I were telling her an amusing story.
"And it is useless," I pursued, somewhat bitterly, perhaps. "I am too old?"
There was a little mirror on the mantelpiece.She ran and fetched it and held it in front of my face.
"Look," she cried merrily. "Yes, hundreds of years!"
With a laugh and flying skirts she ran from the room.
"Les querelles ne dureraient pas longtemps si le tort n'était d'un côté."
"Les querelles ne dureraient pas longtemps si le tort n'était d'un côté."
Monsieur Alphonse Giraud, unlike many men, had an aim in life—a daily purpose with which he rose in the morning at, it must be admitted, a shockingly late hour—without which he rarely sought his couch even when it was not reached until the foolish birds were astir.
The son of the celebrated Baron Giraud sought, in a word, to be mistaken for an Englishman—and what higher ambition could we, who modestly set such store upon our nationality, desire him to cherish?
In view of this praiseworthy object, Alphonse Giraud wore a mustache only, and this—oh! inconsistency of great minds—he laboriously twirled heavenwards in the French fashion. It was, in fact, the guileless Alphonse's chief tribulation that, however industriously he cultivated that devil-may-care upward sweep, the sparse ornament to his upper lip invariably drooped downwards again before long.In the sunny land of France it is held that the mustache worn "en croc" not only confers upon its possessor an air of distinction, but renders that happy individual particularly irresistible in the eyes of the fair. Readers of modern French fiction are aware that the heroes of those edifying tales invariably wear the mustache "hardiment retroussée," which habit doubtless adds a subtle charm to their singularly puerile and fatuous conversation imperceptible to the mere reader.
Alphonse Giraud was a small man, and would have given a thousand pounds for another inch, as he frankly told his friends. His outward garments were fashioned in London, whence also came his hats, gloves and boots. But within all these he was hopelessly and absolutely French. The English boots trod the pavement—they knew no other path in life—in a manner essentially Gallic. The check trousers, of a pattern somewhat loud and startling, had the mincing gait in them of any "pantalon de fantasie," purchased à prix fixe in the Boulevard St. Germain, across the water. It is useless to lift a Lincoln and Bennett from a little flat-topped head, cut, as they say, to the rat and fringed all over with black, upright hair.
But young Giraud held manfully to his purpose, and even essayed to copy the attitudes of his own groom, a thin-legged man from Streatham, whoknew a thing or two, let him tell you, about a 'oss. There was no harm in Alphonse. There is, indeed, less harm in Frenchmen than they—sad dogs!—would have you believe. They are, as a rule, domesticated individuals, with a pretty turn for mixing a salad. Within the narrow but gay waistcoat of this son of Paris there beat as kind a little eager French heart as one may wish to deal with.
"Bon Dieu!" Alphonse would exclaim, when convinced that he had been robbed or cheated. "What will you? I am like that. I daresay the poor devil wanted the money badly—and I do not miss it."
There is a charity that gives, and another that allows the needy to take.
It was the Baron Giraud's great desire that Alphonse should be a gentleman of the great world, moving in his narrow orbit in the first circles of Parisian society, which was nothing to boast of in those days, and has steadily declined ever since. To attain such an eminence, the astute financier knew as well as any that only one thing was really necessary—namely, money. This he gave to his son with an open hand, and only gasped when he heard whither it went and how freely Alphonse spent it.
"There is plenty more," he said, "behind." And his little porcine eyes twinkled amid their yellow wrinkles. "I am a man of substance. You must be a man of position. But do not lend to the wrong people. Rather give to the right and be done with it. They will take it—bon Dieu! You need not shake your head. There is no man who will refuse money if you offer him enough."
And who shall say that the Baron Giraud was wrong?
A young man possessing a light heart and a heavy purse will never want a friend in this kind world of ours. And Alphonse Giraud possessed, moreover, a few of the better sort of friends, who had well-filled purses of their own, and wanted nothing from him but his gay laugh and good-fellowship. These were true friends, who did not scruple to tell him, when they encountered him in the Bois de Boulogne, afoot or on horseback, that while the right-hand side of his mustache was most successfully en croc, the other extremity of the ornament pointed earthwards. And, let it be remembered, that to tell a man of a defect in his personal appearance is always a doubtful kindness.
"Ah, heavens!" Alphonse would exclaim to these true comrades, "I have evil luck, and two minutes ago I bowed to the beautiful Comtesse de Peudechose in her buggy."
Alphonse affected the society of Englishmen, was a member of the clubs frequented by the sonsof Albion resident in Paris, and sought the society of the young gentlemen of the Embassy. It was in the apartments of one of these that he made the acquaintance of Phillip Gayerson, a young fellow intended for the diplomatic service. Phillip Gayerson, be it known at once, was the brother of that Isabella Gayerson to whose hand, heart and estate the present chronicler was accredited by a fond father, and about whom, indeed, he had quarrelled with the author of his being.
The name of Dick Howard being at that time unknown to the little Frenchman, Alphonse Giraud made no mention of it to Gayerson a self-absorbed man, who had probably forgotten my existence at this time.
My countryman, as I afterwards learned, had come to Paris with the object of learning the language, which by reason of its subtlety lends itself most readily to diplomatic purposes, the most expressive language, to my thinking, that the world has yet evolved, not excepting the much-vaunted tongue in which Homer wrote. Phillip and I had been boys together, and of all the comrades of my youth I should have selected him the last to distinguish himself in statecraft. He was a quiet, unobservant, and, as previously noted, self-absorbed man, with a sense of the picturesque, which took the form of mediocre water-colour sketching. His appearance was in his favour, for he was visibly a gentleman; a man, moreover, of refined thought and habit, whom burly Norfolk squires dubbed effeminate.
Alphonse Giraud liked him—the world is sunny to those who look at it through sunny eyes—and took him up, as the saying goes, without hesitation. He procured for him an invitation to a semi-state ball, held, as some no doubt remember, in the autumn of 1869. It was Lucille de Clericy's first ball, and Giraud renewed there a childish friendship with one whose hair he confessed to have pulled in the unchivalrous days of his infancy.
Alphonse, who was of a frank nature, as are many of his countrymen, told Madame de Clericy, whom he escorted to the refreshment room after dancing with her daughter, that he loved Lucille.
"But my dear Alphonse," retorted that lady, "you had forgotten her existence until this evening."
This objection to his passion the lightsome Alphonse waived aside with a perfectly gloved little hand.
"But," he answered earnestly, "unknown to myself her vision must always have beenhere."
And he touched his shirt-front with the tips of his fingers gently, remembering the delicacy of his linen.
"It is an angel!" he added, with an upward glance of his bright little eyes, and tossed off a glass of champagne cup.
Madame de Clericy sipped her coffee slowly, and said nothing; but her eyes travelled downward from the crown of her companion's head to his dapper feet. And during that scrutiny there is little doubt that she reckoned the value of Monsieur Alphonse Giraud. What she saw was a pleasant spoken young man, plus twenty thousand pounds a year. No wonder the Vicomtesse smiled softly.
"And I," went on the Frenchman in half humorous humility, "what am I? Not clever, not handsome, not even tall!"
The lady shrugged her shoulders.
"C'est la vie," she said; a favourite reflection with her.
"Yes, and life and I are equal," replied Alphonse, with his gay laugh. "We are both short! And now I wish to present to you and to Lucille my best friend, Phillip Gayerson. He stands over there by the table, he in English clothes. He only arrived in Paris ten days ago, and speaks French indifferently. But he is charming, quite charming, my dearest friend."
"Did you know him before he came to Paris?"
"Oh, no! Excuse me. I will bring him."
Madame made no remark, but watched Giraudwith her quiet smile as he went to seek this dear friend of eight days' standing.
Phillip Gayerson was distinguished by a slight shyness. It was as little known or understood in Paris in the decadent days of the Second Empire as it is now in the time of our own social collapse in England.
Thus, when the introduction was complete, Phillip Gayerson found that he had nothing to say to this elderly French lady, and was glad when Lucille came up, radiant on the arm of her partner. Alphonse presented his friend at once, and here Phillip felt more at his ease, being a better dancer than talker, and asked for the honour of a waltz without delay.
"I have but two left," answered Mademoiselle de Clericy, with a gay glance of happiness towards her mother. "They are at the end of the programme, and I promised to reserve them for Monsieur Howard."
She handed him her engagement card, in frank confirmation of this statement.
"R. H.," said Gayerson, deciphering the initials Lucille herself had scribbled. "If this is Dick Howard I will take the first of his two dances, and risk the consequence. It will not be the first time that Dick and I have fallen out."
"THEN YOU KNOW MR. HOWARD?" SAID LUCILLE, WITH ANOTHER GLANCE AT HER MOTHER. "YES," ... ANSWERED GAYERSON, BUT HAD NO TIME FOR MORE, FOR THE NEXT DANCE WAS GIRAUD'S, WHO WAS ALREADY BOWING BEFORE HER, AS BEFORE A DEITY."THEN YOU KNOW MR. HOWARD?" SAID LUCILLE, WITH ANOTHER GLANCE AT HER MOTHER. "YES," ... ANSWERED GAYERSON, BUT HAD NO TIME FOR MORE, FOR THE NEXT DANCE WAS GIRAUD'S, WHO WAS ALREADY BOWING BEFORE HER, AS BEFORE A DEITY.
He wrote his name over mine, and returned the card to its owner.
"Then you know Mr. Howard?" said Lucille, with another glance at her mother.
"Yes," ... answered Gayerson, but had no time for more, for the next dance was Giraud's, who was already bowing before her, as before a deity.
Madame de Clericy made a little movement, as if to speak to Gayerson, but that young gentleman failed to see the gesture, and moved away to find his partner for the coming waltz.
With the great people gathered at this assembly we have nothing to do, though the writer and the reader, no doubt, love to rub elbows with such lofty persons, if it be only in a public room. Many of them, be it noted, were not nearly so important as they considered themselves, and the greatness of some was built upon a base too frail to withstand the storm and stress of the coming years.
Through the brilliant throng Lucille moved gaily and happily, taking, with the faith of youth, dross for gold, and a high head for the token of a noble heart. When Phillip Gayerson claimed his dance he found her a little tired, but still dazzled and excited by the brilliance of the occasion.
"Is it not splendid?" she exclaimed, taking hisarm. "It is my first ball. I am sure I shall never be too old to dance, as mother says she is. Is it not absurd to say such a thing?"
Gayerson laughed, and as was his wont—a habit, indeed, with many shy men—came straight to the point.
"Do you know Dick Howard, then?" he asked.
"Yes, a little. Has he arrived? This is his dance, you know."
"I cannot tell you if he has arrived, Mademoiselle," answered the Englishman, in his halting French. "I know him at home—in Norfolk. I was not aware that he was in Paris. But he will not be here to-night."
"Why?"
"Because his father is dead."
Lucille said nothing. She obeyed the movements of his arm, and they danced, mingling with that gay throng, where the feet were lighter than the hearts, we may be sure. They went through the whole dance in silence, as Phillip afterwards told me—and he tried in vain to engage Lucille's full attention to matters of passing interest.
"We must find my mother," she said at length, when the music had ceased. "Mr. Howard does not know. He has been travelling in the South with my father. His letters have not been forwarded to him."
Phillip Gayerson guided his partner through the laughing throng.
"It will be bad news for Dick," he said, "for his father has left him penniless."
"I understood," observed Lucille, looking attentively at her bouquet, "that he was wealthy."
"No. He quarrelled with his father, who left him without a sou. But Howard knew it before he quitted England."
Lucille did not speak again until they had joined her mother, to whom she said something so hurriedly that Gayerson did not catch the import of her words.
At this moment I entered the room, and made my way towards them, feeling more fit for my bed than a ball-room, for I had travelled night and day to dance a waltz with Lucille. As I approached, Gayerson bowed to the ladies and took his departure.
"My dance, Mademoiselle," I said, "if you have been so kind as to remember it."
"Yes," answered Lucille, coldly as it seemed, "but I am tired, and we are going home."
I looked towards Madame, and saw something in her face, I knew not what.
"Your arm, mon ami," she said, lifting her hand; "we had better go home."