“The 'Res Dura' that crosses every man's destiny, and a spice of that spirit of investigation which teaches one to explore very unwholesome depths and very unrewarding regions,—a blending of that which made the Czar a carpenter, and Louis Philippe a teacher of mathematics.”
“Ah! that reminds me,” interposed he, “that I ought to put you on your guard. To-day a Royal Prince will honor us with his company. There are a couple of ministers and a general. The rest of the party are of the artiste class, whose susceptibilities you cannot wound; authors, actresses, journalists, and danseuses, however touchy in the great world, are angels of good temper in small societies.” With this he proceeded to give me a nearer insight into the kind of company into which I was to be introduced,—a society, so far as I could learn, that a rigid moralist might have deemed “more fair than honest.” I learned, too, that I owed the distinction of my invitation to a wager between his Royal Highness the Duc de St. Cloud and my host; the bet being that De Minérale was to find out a “quatorzième” and bring him to dinner, his search for one not to begin till after five o'clock p.m.; the Prince being fully convinced that no regular practitioner in that walk any longer existed. “Your presence, my dear sir,” continued he, “is worth, independent of the charm of your conversation, fifty Napoleons; one-half of which I must beg you to accept;” saying which, he gracefully presented me with a purse, whose pleasant weight descended into my palm with a sensation indescribably soft and soothing.
All this time we were rattling along towards Belleville at a rapid pace; and although the rain swept past in torrents, the lightning flashed, and the wind tore the strong trees from their roots, and strewed the ground with their gigantic limbs, I sat in a revery of sweet and delightful fancies, the only alloy to my ecstasy being a passing fear that at each moment shot through me: Can this be real? Am I awake? or has long fasting so weakened my faculties that this is but a delusion; and instead of hastening to a dinner-party with a royal guest, I am speeding onwards to a prison, or, mayhap, a madhouse. These fancies, at first but fitful and at intervals, became at length so distressing that I was on the very point of communicating them to my companion, and asking for his counsel and comfort, when we drove into a small avenue, and then almost immediately drew up in front of a porch, where, amid a blaze of light, stood three or four servants in gaudy liveries, awaiting our arrival.
“Well, Paul!” cried a young, fashionable-looking fellow, with a very imposing black beard, “what success?”
“I 've won,—here he is!” cried my companion. “Have I much time to spare?”
“Something less than two minutes,” said the other, as he coolly surveyed me through his glass. “Present me, Paul.”
“Mons. Alphonse de Langeron—Mons. de Corneille.”
“The author of the 'Fancies by Starlight,'” said I, bowing with a most respectful devotion.
“Guilty, sir! and of fifty other indiscretions to the full as great,” said he, laughing.
“Ah, sir, I know it by heart; that stanza on the 'Waled Letty' haunts me like a dream.”