“Good; I am glad to hear you say so, because it proves to me that you are a sensible young man. I should not trouble myself much about the young mountaineer; fellows of his character are not worth wasting one’s thoughts over. Bah! she’ll never marry him—never—take my word for it.”
“Unless I return to England.”
“Ah, that’s quite a different matter, but you do not intend to return?”
“Not just at present, at any rate,” added the chevalier, with a sarcastic smile. “I think I know you too well for that, although our acquaintance is of such short duration. Be of good cheer, and don’t give up the girl to a boor like that.”
The chevalier took the young man’s soul, as it were, and softened it in the fire of passions which he excited with his contaminating breath; then he kneaded it like molten wax, and gave it back more or less after the pattern of his own.
His language had the glitter of the serpent, that seems to caress its victim the better to destroy it. Without once wounding the sensibility of his listener, the chevalier scoffed down all his beliefs, demolished all his illusions.
Lord Ethalwood had heard much of the lax morals of our continental neighbours, and in Monsieur de Monpres he had a bright example.
“Come, come,” said the latter, “you must bear a more cheerful aspect. I tell you freely I don’t intend to take my departure from your hospitable house until I see you looking bright and cheerful.”
The old Frenchman kept his word, for he remained several days with the young earl. During his stay he was explanatory as regards Madame Trieste, whom he described as a very clever and cunning mother, speculating on the inexperience of a young man of name and fortune, with the view of entrapping him into a marriage with her daughter. This, he said, was all fair enough. She had a perfect right to do the best she could for her child, but on the other hand the earl had an equal right to take excellent care not to snap at the bait so artfully presented to him.
Finally he demonstrated that Gerome Chanet, the girl’s betrothed husband, was simply a supernumerary called in to play a part, to serve the ends of the chief actors in the drama, by exhibiting himself in the character of a betrothed, to force his lordship into a declaration of love.