CHAPTER XXIX.
Here's a kind host, that makes the invitation, To your own cost to hisfort bon collation.--Wycherly's Gent. Dancing Master.
Vous pouvez bien juger que je n'aurai pas grande peine a me consolerd'une chose donc je me suis deja console tant de fois.--Lettres deBoileau.
As I was walking home with Vincent from the Rue Mont-orgueil, I saw, onentering the Rue St. Honore, two figures before us; the tall and noblestature of the one I could not for a moment mistake. They stopped at thedoor of an hotel, which opened in that noiseless manner so peculiarto the Conciergerie of France. I was at the porte the moment theydisappeared, but not before I had caught a glance of the dark locks andpale countenance of Warburton--my eye fell upon the number of the hotel.
"Surely," said I, "I have been in that house before."
"Likely enough," growled Vincent, who was gloriously drunk. "It isa house of two-fold utility--you may play with cards, or coquet withwomen, selon votre gout."
At these words I remembered the hotel and its inmates immediately. Itbelonged to an old nobleman, who, though on the brink of the grave, wasstill grasping at the good things on the margin. He lived with a prettyand clever woman, who bore the name and honours of his wife. They keptup two salons, one pour le petit souper, and the other pour le petitjeu. You saw much ecarte and more love-making, and lost your heart andyour money with equal facility. In a word, the marquis and his joliepetite femme were a wise and prosperous couple, who made the best oftheir lives, and lived decently and honourably upon other people.
"Allons, Pelham," cried Vincent, as I was still standing at the doorin deliberation; "how much longer will you keep me to congeal in this'eager and nipping air'--'Quamdiu nostram patientiam abutere Catilina.'"
"Let us enter," said I. "I have the run of the house, and we may find--""'Some young vices--some fair iniquities'" interrupted Vincent, with ahiccup--
"'Leade on good fellowe,' quoth Robin Hood, Lead on, I do bid thee.'"
And with these words, the door opened in obedience to my rap, and wemounted to the marquis's tenement au premiere.
The room was pretty full--the soi-disante marquise was flitting fromtable to table--betting at each, and coquetting with all; and themarquis himself, with a moist eye and a shaking hand, was affecting theDon Juan with the various Elviras and Annas with which his salon wascrowded. Vincent was trying to follow me through the crowd, but hisconfused vision and unsteady footing led him from one entanglementto another, till he was quite unable to proceed. A tall, corpulentFrenchman, six foot by five, was leaning, (a great and weightyobjection,) just before him, utterly occupied in the vicissitudes of anecarte table, and unconscious of Vincent's repeated efforts, first onone side, and then on the other, to pass him.
At last, the perplexed wit, getting more irascible as he grew morebewildered, suddenly seized the vast incumbrance by the arm, and saidto him in a sharp, querulous tone, "Pray, Monsieur, why are you like thelote tree in Mahomet's Seventh Heaven?"
"Sir!" cried the astonished Frenchman.
"Because," (continued Vincent, answering his own enigma)--"because,beyond you there is no passing!"
The Frenchman (one of that race who always forgive any thing for a bonmot) smiled, bowed, and drew himself aside. Vincent steered by, and,joining me, hiccuped out, "In rebus adversis opponite pectora fortia."
Meanwhile I had looked round the room for the objects of my pursuit: tomy great surprise I could not perceive them; they may be in the otherroom, thought I, and to the other room I went; the supper was laid out,and an old bonne was quietly helping herself to some sweetmeat. Allother human beings (if, indeed, an old woman can be called a humanbeing) were, however, invisible, and I remained perfectly bewilderedas to the non-appearance of Warburton and his companion. I entered theSalle a Jouer once more--I looked round in every corner--I examinedevery face--but in vain; and with a feeling of disappointment verydisproportioned to my loss, I took Vincent's arm, and we withdrew.
The next morning I spent with Madame D'Anville. A Frenchwoman easilyconsoles herself for the loss of a lover--she converts him into afriend, and thinks herself (nor is she much deceived) benefited by theexchange. We talked of our grief in maxims, and bade each other adieuin antitheses. Ah! it is a pleasant thing to drink with Alcidonis (inMarmontel's Tale) of the rose-coloured phial--to sport with the fancy,not to brood over the passion of youth. There is a time when the heart,from very tenderness, runs over, and (so much do our virtues as wellas vices flow from our passions) there is, perhaps, rather hope thananxiety for the future in that excess. Then, if Pleasure errs, it errsthrough heedlessness, not design; and Love, wandering over flowers,"proffers honey, but bears not a sting." Ah! happy time! in the lines ofone who can so well translate feeling into words--
"Fate has not darkened thee; Hope has not made The blossoms expand itbut opens to fade; Nothing is known of those wearing fears Which willshadow the light of our after years."--The Improvisatrice.
Pardon this digression--not much, it must be confessed, in my ordinarystrain--but let me, dear reader, very seriously advise thee not tojudge of me yet. When thou hast got to the end of my book, if thou dostcondemn it or its hero--why "I will let thee alone (as honest Dogberryadvises) till thou art sober; and, if thou make me not, then, the betteranswer, thou art not the man I took thee for."
VOLUME III.