Part 10 (1/2)
”And you--how are you?” asked Glencore, relieved to turn attention away from himself, while he drew his arm within the other's.
”The same poor ailing mortal you always knew me,” said Upton, languidly; ”doomed to a life of uncongenial labor, condemned to climates totally unstated to me, I drag along existence, only astonished at the trouble I take to live, knowing pretty well as I do what life is worth.”
”'Jolly companions every one!' By Jove!” said Har-court, ”for a pair of fellows who were born on the sunny side of the road, I must say you are marvellous instances of grat.i.tude.”
”That excellent hippopotamus,” said Upton, ”has no-thought for any calamity if it does not derange his digestion! How glad I am to see the soup! Now, Glencore, you shall witness no invalid's appet.i.te.”
As the dinner proceeded, the tone of the conversation grew gradually lighter and pleasanter. Upton had only to permit his powers to take their free course to be agreeable, and now talked away on whatever came uppermost, with a charming union of reflectiveness and repartee. If a very rigid purist might take occasional Gallicisms in expression, and a constant leaning to French modes of thought, none could fail to be delighted with the graceful ease with which he wandered from theme to theme, adorning each with some trait of that originality which was his chief characteristic. Harcourt was pleased without well knowing how or why, while to Glencore it brought back the memory of the days of happy intercourse with the world, and all the brilliant hours of that polished circle in which he had lived. To the pleasure, then, which his powers conferred, there succeeded an impression of deep melancholy, so deep as to attract the notice of Harcourt, who hastily asked,--
”If he felt ill?”
”Not worse,” said he, faintly, ”but weak--weary; and I know Upton will forgive me if I say good-night.”
”What a wreck indeed!” exclaimed Upton, as Glencore left the room with his son. ”I'd not have known him.”
”And yet until the last half-hour I have not seen him so well for weeks past. I 'm afraid something you said about Alicia Villars affected him,”
said Harcourt.
”My dear Harcourt, how young you are in all these things,” said Upton, as he lighted his cigarette. ”A poor heart-stricken fellow, like Glencore, no more cares for what _you_ would think a painful allusion, than an old weather-beaten sailor would for a breezy morning on the Downs at Brighton. His own sorrows lie too deeply moored to be disturbed by the light winds that ruffle the surface. And to think that all this is a woman's doing! Is n't that what's pa.s.sing in your mind, eh, most gallant Colonel?”
”By Jove, and so it was! They were the very words I was on the point of uttering,” said Harcourt, half nettled at the ease with which the other read him.
”And of course you understand the source of the sorrow?”
”I'm not quite so sure of that,” said Harcourt, more and more piqued at the tone of bantering superiority with which the other spoke.
”Yes, you do, Harcourt; I know you better than you know yourself. Your thoughts were these: Here's a fellow with a t.i.tle, a good name, good looks, and a fine fortune, going out of the world of a broken heart, and all for a woman!”
”You knew her,” said Harcourt, anxious to divert the discussion from himself.
”Intimately. Ninetta della Torre was the belle of Florence--what am I saying? of all Italy--when Glencore met her, about eighteen years ago.
The Palazzo della Torre was the best house in Florence. The old Prince, her grandfather,--her father was killed in the Russian campaign,--was spending the last remnant of an immense fortune in every species of extravagance. Entertainments that surpa.s.sed those of the Pitti Palace in splendor, fetes that cost fabulous sums, banquets voluptuous as those of ancient Rome, were things of weekly occurrence. Of course every foreigner, with any pretension to distinction, sought to be presented there, and we English happened just at that moment to stand tolerably high in Italian estimation. I am speaking of some eighteen or twenty years back, before we sent out that swarm of domestic economists who, under the somewhat erroneous notion of foreign cheapness, by a system of incessant higgle and bargain, cutting down every one's demand to the measure of their own pockets, end by making the word 'Englishman' a synonym for all that is mean, shabby, and contemptible. The English of that day were of another cla.s.s; and a.s.suredly their characteristics, as regards munificence and high dealing, must have been strongly impressed upon the minds of foreigners, seeing how their successors, very different people, have contrived to trade upon the mere memory of these qualities ever since.”
”Which all means that 'my lord' stood cheating better than those who came after him,” said Harcourt, bluntly.
”He did so; and precisely for that very reason he conveyed the notion of a people who do not place money in the first rank of all their speculations, and who aspire to no luxury that they have not a just right to enjoy. But to come back to Glencore. He soon became a favored guest at the Palazzo della Torre. His rank, name, and station, combined with very remarkable personal qualities, obtained for him a high place in the old Prince's favor, and Ninetta deigned to accord him a little more notice than she bestowed on any one else. I have, in the course of my career, had occasion to obtain a near view of royal personages and their habits, and I can say with certainty that never in any station, no matter how exalted, have I seen as haughty a spirit as in that girl. To the pride of her birth, rank, and splendid mode of life were added the consciousness of her surpa.s.sing beauty, and the graceful charm of a manner quite unequalled. She was incomparably superior to all around her, and, strangely enough, she did not offend by the bold a.s.sertion of this superiority. It seemed her due, and no more. Nor was it the a.s.sumption of mere flattered beauty. Her house was the resort of persons of the very highest station, and in the midst of them--some even of royal blood--she exacted all the deference and all the homage that she required from others.”
”And they accorded it?” asked Harcourt, half contemptuously.
”They did; and so had you also if you had been in their place! Believe me, most gallant Colonel, there is a wide difference between the empty pretension of mere vanity and the daring a.s.sumption of conscious power.
This girl saw the influence she wielded. As she moved amongst us she beheld the homage, not always willing, that awaited her. She felt that she had but to distinguish any one man there, and he became for the time as ill.u.s.trious as though touched by the sword or enn.o.bled by the star of his sovereign. The courtier-like att.i.tude of men, in the presence of a very beautiful woman, is a spectacle full of interest. In the homage vouchsafed to mere rank there enters always a sense of humiliation, and in the observances of respect men tender to royalty, the idea of va.s.salage presents itself most prominently; whereas in the other case, the chivalrous devotion is not alloyed by this meaner servitude, and men never lift their heads more haughtily than after they have bowed them in lowly deference to loveliness.”
A thick, short snort from Harcourt here startled the speaker, who, inspired by the sounds of his own voice and the flowing periods he uttered, had fallen into one of those paroxysms of loquacity which now and then befell him. That his audience should have thought him tiresome or prosy, would, indeed, have seemed to him something strange; but that his hearer should have gone off asleep, was almost incredible.
”It is quite true,” said Upton to himself; ”he snores 'like a warrior taking his rest.' What wonderful gifts some fellows are endowed with!
and, to enjoy life, there is none of them all like dulness. Can you show me to my room?” said he, as Craggs answered his ring at the bell.
The Corporal bowed an a.s.sent.
”The Colonel usually retires early, I suppose?” said Upton.