“Three months passed, and the bachelor home of Garnet Weston had a mistress to preside over it—a queenly-looking woman of twenty-two, perhaps, with dreamy, sad eyes, and a face of wondrous beauty.
“That woman was once the heiress and belle of New York—Mabel Monteith—who had, after long years, married her first and only love, through that game of life and death, in the gulf-washed land of Mexico.”
“Well,” said Colonel Snappe, “it’s a moving narrative, and I expect our friends here, as well as myself, are under the impression that Garnet Weston was done to death. How he managed to escape is the most surprising part of the business.”
“Ah, but I am so glad he did escape, poor, dear fellow,” cried Arabella; “but it is a most touching story. I wouldn’t have missed hearing it on any account.”
“By Jove, but it’s a splendid narrative—never heard a better,” said Lord Fitzbogleton. “I know a fellow, who knows another fellow, you know, who is a capital hand at telling stories, but he isn’t up to the major—not by an immeasurable distance.”
“Ah, that was a most unfortunate piece of business. It was the first serious mistake the late Emperor made,” said the colonel.
“It was not so great as going to war with united Prussia,” observed Sir William Leathbridge. “That was his downfall.”
“Without doubt, Sir William. Nobody will dispute that for a moment; but he was forced into it; and, after all, much as Napoleon III. has been maligned, he was not so ambitious or remorseless a man as many people have been led to suppose. On the contrary, he was a much more kindly monarch than I at one time gave him credit for. We in this country look at foreign potentates and foreign politics from our own point of view.”
“That is but natural, sir,” observed Mr. Downbent. “It is in the nature and order of things that it should be so.”
“And, in addition to all this,” observed Sir William, “I have always maintained that as a nation we are greatly prejudiced, and think we are nearer perfection than any other country.”