Chapter 23

"And from his lips those words of insult fell-- His sword is good who can maintain them well."

It was the middle of October; the reflux of the winter season was beginning to fill Paris, and thither Mohun and Livingstone had returned from their German tour, the latter decidedly the worse for his wanderings. He had not suffered much physically, for the hard living that would have utterly broken up some constitutions had only been able to make his face thinner, to deepen the bistre tints under the eyes, and to give a more angular gauntness to his massive frame.

But morally he was not the same man. Play, which had formerly been only an occasional excitement, had now become a necessary part of his daily existence. Mohun would never say--perhaps he did not know--how much Guy had lost during those few months. In spite of several gigantic _coups_ (he broke the bank both at Baden and Hombourg), the balance was fearfully on the wrong side, so much so that it entailed a heavy mortgage--the maiden one in his time--on the fair lands of Kerton Manor.

I wonder people have not got tired of quoting "_Heureux en jeu; malheureux en amour_." It seems one of the least true of all stale, stupid proverbs. Luck will run itself out in more ways than one; and sometimes you will never hold a trump, however often the suit changes. The ancients knew better than we when they called the double-sixes "Venus's cast." The monotony of Guy's reckless dissipations was soon broken up by an event which ought to have sobered him.

He had been dining with Mohun at the Trois Frères, and they were returning late toward the Boulevards, when their attention was attracted by a group in one of the narrow streets leading out of the Rue Vivienne. Five or six raffish-looking men had surrounded a fair, delicate girl, and were preparing to besiege her in form, deriving apparently intense amusement from the piteous entreaties of their victim to be released. Not the _roués_ of the Regency after the suppers that have become a by-word--not the _mousquetaires_ after the wildest of their orgies--were ever so unrelenting in brutality toward women quite lonely and undefended as those unshorn ornaments of Young France, when replete with a dinner at forty _sous_, and with the anomalous liquor that Macon blushes to own.

In all Europe there is no more genial companion and gallant gentleman than the aristocrat of France _pur sang_--in all the world no more terrible adversary than her wiry, well-trained soldier; but, from the prolific decay of old institutions and prejudices, a mushroom growth has sprouted of child-atheists and precocious profligates, calculating debauchees while their cheeks are still innocent of down, who, after the effervescence of a foul, vicious youth has spent itself, simmer down into avaricious, dishonest _bourgeois_ and bloated café politicians. The teeth of the Republican dragon have been drawn, but they are sown broadcast from Dan even to Beersheba. Ancient realm of Capet, Valois, and Bourbon--motherland of Du Guesclin and Bayard--you may well be proud of your Cadmean offspring!

Guy was passing the scene with a careless side-glance when the accent of the suppliant caught his ear--not French, though she spoke the language perfectly.

"By G--d," he said, dropping Mohun's arm, "I believe it's an Englishwoman they are bullying;" and three of his long strides took him into the midst of the group.

Two of the aggressors reeled back, right and left, from the shock of his mighty shoulders; and griping another, the tallest, by the collar, he whirled him some paces off on his back in the streaming kennel, as one might do with a very weak, light little child. "_Au large, canaille_!" he said, as he advanced on the two who still kept their feet. These drew back from his path without a second warning. One indeed, eminent in the _savate_, made a demonstration for an instant; but his comrade, who had just gathered himself up, caught his arm, muttering "_Ne t'y frotte pas, Alphonse. C'est trop dur_." None of them fancied an encounter with the grim giant who confronted them, his muscles braced and salient, his eyes gleaming with the _gaudia certaminis_, and his nostrils dilated as if they snuffed the battle.

So they made way for Guy and his charge to pass, only grinding out between their teeth the strange guttural blasphemies that characterize impotent Gallic wrath.

Mohun, a reserve scarcely leas formidable, stood by all the while, looking on lazily; he saw that his companion was more than equal to the emergency.

"I hope you have not been much annoyed," Livingstone said, kindly. "Where were you going to? I shall be too happy to escort you, if you will allow me."

She named the street, only a few hundred yards off, and tried to thank him gratefully, but her voice was broken and scarcely audible, and the blinding tears would rush into her eyes. Poor child! it was very long since she had heard gentle, courteous words in her mother-tongue. She recovered herself, however, during their short walk, and they had nearly reached her destination when Livingstone said, "Forgive me for being impertinent; I have no right to advise you; but I think you would find it better not to walk alone, often, at this hour. There is always a chance of something disagreeable."

He could see her blush painfully as she answered, "I have no one to accompany me. I work hard at drawing and painting as long as there is light, and I had gone out to see if I could sell what I have done. But I fear I am a very poor artist; no one would offer me as much as they had cost me. And I tried at so many places!"

It was piteous to hear the heavy, heart-broken sigh.

"Perhaps I have better taste," replied Livingstone. "Those print-sellers are absurdly ignorant of what is good and anonymous. At all events, they will interest me, as a memorial of to-night. Will you give them to me? I will promise not to be too critical."

He drew the roll out of her hand as he spoke, replacing it by his note-case; and before she could open it or make any objection, he followed Mohun (for they had reached the artist's door by this time), first raising his hat to her in adieu as courteously as he would have done to a reigning archduchess.

How much did the case contain? Guy himself could hardly have told you. But be sure the Recorder of his many misdeeds knew, and reckoned it to the uttermost farthing when he wrote down that one kind action on the credit side.

"Philanthropic, for a change!" Mohun remarked, when his companion joined him. "Well, it's not worse than many of your vagaries. We shall have you founding an asylum next, I suppose."

In his heart the savage old cynic approved, but, for the life of him, he could not check the sneer.

Livingstone made no reply. It was a habit of his very often not to answer Ralph, and the latter did not mind it in the least. In a few moments they reached Guy's apartments, where they found about a dozen men--French and English--awaiting their arrival to begin an unbridled lansquenet. It was a favorite rendezvous for this purpose. The thoroughbred gamblers preferred it to the brilliant entertainments of the Quartier Brèda. They liked to court or fight Fortune by themselves, without being congratulated in success or compassionated in defeat by the fair Phrynes and Aspasias, whose sympathy was somewhat expansive, inasmuch as they always would borrow from the heap whenever any one won, repaying the loan in kind by smiles and caresses, which cost the happy recipient about fifteen Napoleons apiece. Here was an Eden from which Eves were excluded; and on the nights of the _Mercurialia_, the brightest Peri that ever wore camellias might have knocked at the gate disconsolately, but in vain.

While the tables were being prepared, Guy began to tell his late adventure. He spoke of it very lightly, but he thought, if he passed it over altogether, Mohun would probably betray him.

Immediately there was a great cry for a sight of the performances of the unknown genius.

Livingstone looked over the drawings himself carefully, and then passed them to the man who sat nearest him. "I have seen worse," he said. "There is no signature, and I shall not give you the address. You are none of you just the patrons she would fancy. You don't care much for high art."

Among the guests was Horace Levinge, a pale, dark man, with a face that was decidedly handsome, in spite of its Jewish _contour_, and the excessive fullness of the scarlet, sensual lips. His grandfather, report said, had been a prize-fighting Israelite, and afterward a celebrated betting-man--equally eminent in either ring for an unscrupulous scoundrelism which made his fortune. His father had added to the family treasure and importance by cautious usury and adventurous stock-jobbing. Horace himself was a gentleman at large, with no other profession than the consistent pursuit of all kinds of debauchery. He was calculating even in his pleasures, and, they say, kept a regular ledger and daybook of the moneys disbursed in his vices.

When the drawings came to him, he glanced at them for a moment, and then threw them down with a little contemptuous laugh.

"I am sorry to spoil your romance, Livingstone, but I have a pretty good right to recognize the artist's touch. You know her, some of you; it is Fanny Challoner."

"What! the girl you sent away about three weeks ago?" some one asked. "Poor thing! she was not sorry, I should think. She had a hard time of it before she left you."

"Precisely," Levinge replied. "Her modesty and high moral principles, which I never could quite subdue, gave a zest to the thing at first. You understand?--a sort of caviare flavor. But at last it bored me horribly. I really believe she had a conscience. Can you conceive any thing so out of place? I did offer her a little money when she went away, but she would not take any, and said she would try to maintain herself honestly. Bah! I defy her. She was a governess, you know, when I took her first, so she is trying some of the old accomplishments. I wish you joy of your _protégée_, Livingstone; and as for her address, if any of you want it, I will give it you to-morrow."

Before Guy could reply Mohun broke in. While Levinge had been speaking, the colonel's face had grown very dark and threatening.

"Did her father live near Walmer? And was he a half-pay officer?"

"Quite correct," was the answer. "He died about eighteen months before I met Fanny. You knew him, perhaps? How interesting! Excuse my emotion."

"I did know him," Ralph said. "He was a gentleman, and well born. Perhaps that was the reason you could not get on long with his daughter?"

It is a popular error that a bully is always a coward. Certainly Horace was an exception to the rule, if such exists. Nothing could be more calmly insolent than his tone as he answered deliberately,

"How admirable to find Colonel Mohun in the character of the Censor! A Clodius come to judgment. I should hardly have expected it, from his past life, either."

The reply came from the depths of Ralph's chest, very distinct, but with a strange effect of distance and echo, as if the words had been spoken under the vault of some vast dome.

"You will leave my past life alone, if you are wise. I don't preach against immorality; it is only brutality that I find simply disgusting."

"Bah!" the other retorted; "it comes to the same thing. I should have thought Lady Caroline Mannering might have taught you to be less critical."

The Cuirassier rose from his seat and strode a pace forward, the gray hair bristling round his savage face like a wild-boar's at bay.

"If you dare to breathe that name again, except with respect and honor, I'll cram the words down your throat, by the eternal God!"

Levinge crimsoned with passion. The brutal blood of the dead prize-fighter, who, when he "crossed" a fight, lost it ever by a foul blow, was boiling in his descendant. He had been drinking too, and, as the French say--_avait le vin mauvais_--so he answered coolly and slowly, letting the syllables fall one by one, like drops of hail,

"I shall mention it just as often as it pleases me, and with just so much respect as is due to Mannering's cast-off wife and your--"

The foul word that was on his lips never left them, for Mohun's threat was literally fulfilled. His right hand shot out from the shoulder with a sudden impulse that seemed rather mechanical than an action of the will, and, catching the speaker full in the mouth, laid him on the carpet senseless and streaming with blood.