“So, Méricourt has found grace?” said he; “and grace is not necessarily to be gracious, it seems. Yet, you still come here! And why, M. Boppard?”
The student shook his head. His face had grown much happier in a certain prospect.
“Why do I, monsieur? Can I say? Of a truth it ceases to be the place of my affections; yet—I do not know. The bird will visit and revisit its robbed nest; will sit on the familiar twig and call up, perhaps, a vision of the little blue eggs in the moss. I have been content here. I cling, doubtless, to the old illusions that are vanished.”
“Amongst which is the Club of Nature’s Gentry?”
“Hush!”
The wine was brought in as he spoke. For what reason soever, Ned’s argument had prevailed. Probably decorum would not risk a scene dangerous to its reputation.
“Hush!” murmured the sizar, twinkling and portentous in one, when they were left alone again. “It is vanished, as monsieur says. It ceased, morally and practically, with the disappearance of M. de St Denys.”
“Whither has he gone, then?”
“It is supposed to Paris; and may the curse of God follow him!”
Ned paused in the act of drinking.