“You must not reproach me with this, for you have yourself set me the example; but, in any case, I am now in a riding dress, and must change it for a mountaineer’s costume, as, after supper, I have to make an excursion in which boots and spurs would only serve to hinder me.”
“You are going out after supper, then?” I asked.
“Yes,” he replied, “to a rendezvous.”
I smiled.
“Ah, not in the sense you understand it—this is a matter of business.”
“Do you think me so presumptuous as to believe I have a right to your conscience?”
“Why not? One should live so as to be able to proclaim what one has done. I never had a mistress, and I never shall have one. If my brother should marry, and have children, it is probable that I shall never take a wife. If, on the contrary, he does not marry, perhaps I shall, so as to prevent our race from becoming extinct. Did I not tell you,” he added, laughing, “that I am a regular savage, and had come into the world a hundred years too late? But I continue to chatter here like a crow, and I shall not be ready by the time supper is on the table.”
“But cannot we continue the conversation?” I said. “Your chamber, I believe, is opposite, and we can talk through the open doors.”
“We can do better than that; you can come into my room while I dress. You are a judge of arms, I fancy. Well, then, you shall look at mine. There are some there which are valuable—from an historical point of view, I mean.”