“You are the best fellow in the world, Frederic, and I make you the promise you ask,” said Alain, cheerfully, but yet with a secret emotion of tenderness and gratitude. “And now, mon cher, what day will you dine with me to meet Raoul and Enguerrand, and some others whom you would like to know?”
“Thanks, and hearty ones, but we move now in different spheres, and I shall not trespass on yours. Je suis trop bourgeois to incur the ridicule of le bourgeois gentilhomme.”
“Frederic, how dare you speak thus? My dear fellow, my friends shall honour you as I do.”
“But that will be on your account, not mine. No; honestly that kind of society neither tempts nor suits me. I am a sort of king in my own walk; and I prefer my Bohemian royalty to vassalage in higher regions. Say no more of it. It will flatter my vanity enough if you will now and then descend to my coteries, and allow me to parade a Rochebriant as my familiar crony, slap him on the shoulder, and call him Alain.”
“Fie! you who stopped me and the English aristocrat in the Champs Elysees, to humble us with your boast of having fascinated une grande dame,—I think you said a duchesse.”
“Oh,” said Lemercier, conceitedly, and passing his hand through his scented locks, “women are different; love levels all ranks. I don’t blame Ruy Blas for accepting the love of a queen, but I do blame him for passing himself off as a noble,—a plagiarism, by the by, from an English play. I do not love the English enough to copy them. A propos, what has become of ce beau Grarm Varn? I have not seen him of late.”
“Neither have I.”
“Nor the belle Italienne?”
“Nor her,” said Alain, slightly blushing.
At this moment Enguerrand lounged into the room. Alain stopped Lemercier to introduce him to his kinsman. “Enguerrand, I present to you M. Lemercier, my earliest and one of my dearest friends.”