A spot of colour came to his cheek. His eyes kindled with a light of febrile enthusiasm.
“To be free to enjoy, in a world of yielding generosities,” he cried; “to be cast from restrictions designed to the selfish aggrandisement of infinitely less than a moiety of our race; to strip indulgence of the shamefulness that century-long cant has credited it withal—that is the El Dorado I give my efforts and my substance to attain.”
“There,” thought Ned, “is confessed the animalism to which the other is but a blind. But this is half-effeminate vapouring.”
He had no sympathy, indeed, with theories so untenable. This lickerish, unconstructive paganism was far from being the lodestar to his own revolutionary cock-boat. Yet he could not but marvel over M. de St Denys’ extremely practical expression of extremely frothy sentiments. Involuntarily he glanced round the room.
“Yes,” cried the other, observant of the look. “I am not one of those doctors who refuse their own medicine.”
A thought of surprise seemed to strike him.
“But I run ahead of my manners,” cried he, with a quick laugh. “You charge me with a letter, and I return you a volley of exposition. I have not even offered you a seat. Pray accommodate yourself with one. And you knew my father, sir?”
“I had not the honour. He was a friend of my lord viscount.”
“Who gave you a letter to him. There is figured out the value of the social relations. He has been dead, sir, since five years. He left two sons, of whom I am the younger. My brother, Lucien, a sailor, who held his commission to the West Indies under De Grasse, perished there in ’81 in an explosion of powder. The estate devolved upon me. We have not your laws of primogeniture, and had poor Lucien returned, we should have shared the burden and the joy of inheritance——”
He had been leaning carelessly back against a table while he talked. He now came erect, and added, with a queer look on his face—