Part 27 (1/2)

”Eh, Mon Dieu! You wouldn't have me drink alone! You grieve my soul, Chrysler! _Bois, done_, my dear friend, we will be merry together. In this cursed country, among these oxen of the farms, we don't often meet a civilized friend.” In saying this, he was dexterously pulling the cork from a bottle of champagne, which his right hand now poured into two wine gla.s.ses, as skilfully as his left had whisked them out of a corner of the basket.

”Drink quickly,--Eh bien, you do not wish to? Your health then!--May you long survive your principles, and experience a blessed death of gout!”

He quaffed off the gla.s.s and poured out another, laughing and chatting on with such bounding, irresistible spirits that his guest caught a kind of sympathetic infection. Gla.s.s after gla.s.s interminable disappeared down his throat in a kind of intermittent cascade. The Ontarian laughed more than he had done for many a year.

”But, De Bleury,” he got breath to say, ”what is your important capacity here, that they give you such sumptuous quarters?”

”Commercial traveller in the only commerce of the country. We have no business here, you know, except statesmans.h.i.+p, the trade in voters, _le metier de ministre_. You see a man;--tell me how much he owns:--I can tell you his election price. The schedule is simply: How much taxes does he pay?--Pay my taxes; I vote your side. There lies the only shame of my Scotch blood that they have never devised a commerce so obvious. It's like a bailiff we used to tease; he had no money, poor devil, so when he came into the bar he used to say to us, 'Make me drunk and have some fun with me.' 'Pay my taxes and have some fun with me:' the same thing, you see. All men are merchandise. Ross de Bleury alone has no price--but for a regular good guzzler, I could embezzle a Returning Officer.”

A rap sounded on the door of the stairs.

”I resemble my ancestor, the Chevalier Jean Ross, who, when he was storming a castle in Flanders, exclaimed: 'Victory, companions! we command the door of the wine cellar!'”

The words of a Persian proverb: ”You are a liar, but you delight me,”

pa.s.sed through Chrysler's mind.

The rap sounded again, and louder, on the door below.

De Bleury's manner changed. He looked at his companion as if revolving some plan; then moving rapidly to the ticket-office-like-closet, he opened a door, and beckoned him in, signing to sit down and keep quiet.

The closet was darker than the darkest part of the surrounding garret, for the dormer window in it, similar to the one near the table, was boarded up, all but a single irregular aperture, admitting light enough only to reveal the surroundings after lapse of some time.

De Bleury, however, by holding his purse up to the c.h.i.n.k of light, managed to a.s.sure himself of the denomination of a bank-note, and then, turning hastily, lifted the sliding door of the ticket-hole a trifle and pus.h.i.+ng out the money, left it partly under the slide, letting in a grey beam on their darkness. He then silently applied his eye to an augur-hole above the slide, and waited. Meantime the knock sounded once more and pair of heavy steps came up the stairs, and tramped towards them; and some indefinable recognition of the heavy tread came vaguely to Chrysler. The steps stopped, the note was withdrawn, the tread sank away down the stairs, and De Bleury, rollicking with suppressed laughter, opened the door.

”You have overseen a ceremony of the Freemasons,” he said. ”Truly. You don't believe it? I am a Freemason, I _am_, Chrysler,” he said, sententiously, with a trace of the champagne, ”I have observed a square and compa.s.s among the charms at your watch-chain. You know, therefore, your duties towards a brother, not, perhaps, not to see; but having seen, not to divulge. You understand?”

”Perfectly, my dear De Bleury. Excuse me, I have an engagement at the Manoir.”

CHAPTER x.x.xV.

THE COURSE OF TRUE LOVE.

”p.r.o.neurs de l'ancien regime, dites-moi ce que vous faites de ces belles et riches natures de femmes, qui sortent du sang genereux du peuple?”

--ETIENNE PARENT.

During the excitement and bustle, Mr. Chrysler also sometimes fell into the modest society of Josephte. The girl seemed sad at these times, and to be losing the serene peace which at first seemed her characteristic.

He remarked this to Madame Bois-Hebert one day as he met her sitting in the shades of the pine-walk reading a devotional work.

Madame was a figure still able to command as well as to attract respect.

Dignity and ability had not yet departed from her face and bearing, and quietude was the only effect of age upon her, beyond falling cheeks and increasing absorption in exercises of religion.

”Does it not appear to you that your demoiselle is sad?” he asked.

”It is true, monsieur; her mind is troubled at present.”

”The cause is some cavalier.”