“Sir,” replied the German, speaking in very correct English, but still with his national accent, “every German reared to political service studies England as the school for practical thought distinct from impracticable theories. Long may you allow us to do so! Only excuse me one remark,—never let the selfish element of the practical supersede the generous element. Your father never did so in his speeches, and therefore we admired him. At the present day we don’t so much care to study English speeches; they may be insular,—they are not European. I honour England; Heaven grant that you may not be making sad mistakes in the belief that you can long remain England if you cease to be European.” Herewith the German bowed, not uncivilly,—on the contrary, somewhat ceremoniously,—and disappeared with a Prussian Secretary of Embassy, whose arm he linked in his own, into a room less frequented.
“Vicomte, who and what is your German count?” asked Vane.
“A solemn pedant,” answered the lively Vicomte,—“a German count, que voulez-vous de plus?”
CHAPTER VII.
A LITTLE later Graham found himself alone amongst the crowd. Attracted by the sound of music, he had strayed into one of the rooms whence it came, and in which, though his range of acquaintance at Paris was for an Englishman large and somewhat miscellaneous, he recognized no familiar countenance. A lady was playing the pianoforte—playing remarkably well—with accurate science, with that equal lightness and strength of finger which produces brilliancy of execution; but to appreciate her music one should be musical one’s self. It wanted the charm that fascinates the uninitiated. The guests in the room were musical connoisseurs,—a class with whom Graham Vane had nothing in common. Even if he had been more capable of enjoying the excellence of the player’s performance, the glance he directed towards her would have sufficed to chill him into indifference. She was not young, and with prominent features and puckered skin, was twisting her face into strange sentimental grimaces, as if terribly overcome by the beauty and pathos of her own melodies. To add to Vane’s displeasure, she was dressed in a costume wholly antagonistic to his views of the becoming,—in a Greek jacket of gold and scarlet, contrasted by a Turkish turban.
Muttering “What she-mountebank have we here?” he sank into a chair behind the door, and fell into an absorbed revery. From this he was aroused by the cessation of the music and the hum of subdued approbation by which it was followed. Above the hum swelled the imposing voice of M. Louvier as he rose from a seat on the other side of the piano, by which his bulky form had been partially concealed.
“Bravo! perfectly played! excellent! Can we not persuade your charming young countrywoman to gratify us even by a single song?” Then turning aside and addressing some one else invisible to Graham he said, “Does that tyrannical doctor still compel you to silence, Mademoiselle?”
A voice so sweetly modulated that if there were any sarcasm in the words it was lost in the softness of pathos, answered, “Nay, Monsieur Louvier, he rather overtasks the words at my command in thankfulness to those who like yourself, so kindly regard me as something else than a singer.”
It was not the she-mountebank who thus spoke. Graham rose and looked round with instinctive curiosity. He met the face that he said had haunted him. She too had risen, standing near the piano, with one hand tenderly resting on the she-mountebank’s scarlet and gilded shoulder,—the face that haunted him, and yet with a difference. There was a faint blush on the clear pale cheek, a soft yet playful light in the grave dark-blue eyes, which had not been visible in the countenance of the young lady in the pearl-coloured robe. Graham did not hear Louvier’s reply, though no doubt it was loud enough for him to hear. He sank again into revery. Other guests now came into the room, among them Frank Morley, styled Colonel,—eminent military titles in the United States do not always denote eminent military services,—a wealthy American, and his sprightly and beautiful wife. The Colonel was a clever man, rather stiff in his deportment, and grave in speech, but by no means without a vein of dry humour. By the French he was esteemed a high-bred specimen of the kind of grand seigneur which democratic republics engender. He spoke French like a Parisian, had an imposing presence, and spent a great deal of money with the elegance of a man of taste and the generosity of a man of heart. His high breeding was not quite so well understood by the English, because the English are apt to judge breeding by little conventional rules not observed by the American Colonel. He had a slight nasal twang, and introduced “sir” with redundant ceremony in addressing Englishmen, however intimate he might be with them, and had the habit (perhaps with a sly intention to startle or puzzle them) of adorning his style of conversation with quaint Americanisms.