Pelham — Complete. Эдвард Бульвер-Литтон
the troublesome honour of keeping.
Madame D’Anville was not slow in perceiving the coldness of my behaviour. Though a Frenchwoman, she was rather grieved than resentful.
“You are growing tired of me, my friend,” she said: “and when I consider your youth and temptations, I cannot be surprised at it—yet, I own, that this thought gives me much greater pain than I could have supposed.”
“Bah! ma belle amie,” cried I, “you deceive yourself—I adore you—I shall always adore you; but it’s getting very late.”
Madame D’Anville sighed, and we parted. “She is not half so pretty or agreeable as she was,” thought I, as I mounted my horse, and remembered my appointment at the ambassador’s.
I took unusual pains with my appearance that evening, and drove to the ambassador’s hotel in the Rue Faubourg St. Honore, full half an hour earlier than I had ever done before. I had been some time in the rooms without discovering my heroine of the morning. The Duchess of H—n passed by.
“What a wonderfully beautiful woman,” said Mr. Howard de Howard (the spectral secretary of the embassy) to Mr. Aberton.
“Ay,” answered Aberton, “but to my taste, the Duchesse de Perpignan is quite equal to her—do you know her?”
“No—yes!” said Mr. Howard de Howard; “that is, not exactly—not well;” an Englishman never owns that he does not know a duchess.
“Hem!” said Mr. Aberton, thrusting his large hand through his lank light hair. “Hem—could one do anything, do you think, in that quarter?”
“I should think one might, with a tolerable person!” answered the spectral secretary, looking down at a pair of most shadowy supporters.
“Pray,” said Aberton, “what do you think of Miss—? they say she is an heiress.”
“Think of her!” said the secretary, who was as poor as he was thin, “why, I have thought of her!”
“They say, that fool Pelham makes up to her.” (Little did Mr. Aberton imagine, when he made this remark, that I was close behind him.)
“I should not imagine that was true,” said the secretary; “he is so occupied with Madame D’Anville.”
“Pooh!” said Aberton, dictatorially, “she never had any thing to say to him.”
“Why are you so sure?” said Mr. Howard de Howard.
“Why? because he never showed any notes from her, or ever even said he had a liaison with her himself!”
“Ah! that is quite enough!” said the secretary. “But, is not that the Duchesse de Perpignan?”
Mr. Aberton turned, and so did I—our eyes met—his fell—well they might, after his courteous epithet to my name; however, I had far too good an opinion of myself to care one straw about his; besides, at that moment, I was wholly lost in my surprise and pleasure, in finding that this Duchesse de Perpignan was no other than my acquaintance of the morning. She caught my gaze and smiled as she bowed. “Now,” thought I, as I approached her, “let us see if we cannot eclipse Mr. Aberton.”
All love-making is just the same, and, therefore, I shall spare the reader my conversation that evening. When he recollects that it was Henry Pelham who was the gallant, I am persuaded that he will be pretty certain as to the success.
VOLUME II
CHAPTER XIX
Alea sequa vorax species certissima furti Non contenta bonis, animum quoque perfida mergit;— Furca, furax—infamis, iners, furiosa, ruina.
I dined the next day at the Freres Provencaux; an excellent restaurateur’s, by-the-by, where one gets irreproachable gibier, and meets no English. After dinner, I strolled into the various gambling houses, with which the Palais Royal abounds.
In one of these, the crowd and heat were so great, that I should immediately have retired if I had not been struck with the extreme and intense expression of interest in the countenance of one of the spectators at the rouge et noir table. He was a man about forty years of age; his complexion was dark and sallow; the features prominent, and what are generally called handsome; but there was a certain sinister expression in his eyes and mouth, which rendered the effect of his physiognomy rather disagreeable than prepossessing. At a small distance from him, and playing, with an air which, in its carelessness and nonchalance, formed a remarkable contrast to the painful anxiety of the man I have just described, sate Mr. Thornton.
At first sight, these two appeared to be the only Englishmen present besides myself; I was more struck by seeing the former in that scene, than I was at meeting Thornton there; for there was something distingue in the mien of the stranger, which suited far worse with the appearance of the place, than the bourgeois air and dress of my ci-devant second.
“What! another Englishman?” thought I, as I turned round and perceived a thick, rough great coat, which could possibly belong to no continental shoulders. The wearer was standing directly opposite the seat of the swarthy stranger; his hat was slouched over his face; I moved in order to get a clearer view of his countenance. It was the same person I had seen with Thornton that morning. Never to this moment have I forgotten the stern and ferocious expression with which he was gazing upon the keen and agitated features of the gambler opposite. In the eye and lip there was neither pleasure, hatred, nor scorn, in their simple and unalloyed elements; but each seemed blent and mingled into one deadly concentration of evil passions.
This man neither played, nor spoke, nor moved. He appeared utterly insensible of every feeling in common with those around. There he stood, wrapt in his own dark and inscrutable thoughts, never, for one instant, taking his looks from the varying countenance which did not observe their gaze, nor altering the withering character of their almost demoniacal expression. I could not tear myself from the spot. I felt chained by some mysterious and undefinable interest; my attention was first diverted into a new channel, by a loud exclamation from the dark visaged gambler at the table; it was the first he had uttered, notwithstanding his anxiety; and, from the deep, thrilling tone in which it was expressed, it conveyed a keen sympathy with the overcharged feelings which it burst from.
With a trembling hand, he took from an old purse the few Napoleons that were still left there. He set them all at one hazard, on the rouge. He hung over the table with a dropping lip; his hands were tightly clasped in each other; his nerves seemed strained into the last agony of excitation. I ventured to raise my eyes upon the gaze, which I felt must still be upon the gambler—there it was fixed, and stern as before; but it now conveyed a deeper expression of joy than of the other passions which were there met. Yet a joy so malignant and fiendish, that no look of mere anger or hatred could have so chilled my heart. I dropped my eyes. I redoubled my attention to the cards—the last two were to be turned up. A moment more!—the fortune was to the noir. The stranger had lost! He did not utter a single word. He looked with a vacant eye on the long mace, with which the marker had swept away his last hopes, with his last coin, and then, rising, left the room, and disappeared.
The other Englishman was not long in following him. He uttered a short, low, laugh, unobserved, perhaps, by any one but myself; and, pushing through the atmosphere of sacres and mille tonnerres, which filled that pandaemonium, strode quickly to the door. I felt as if a load had been taken from my bosom, when he was gone.
CHAPTER XX
Reddere person ae scit convenientia cuique.
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