This all looked marvellously like a trap; but as any doubt or indecision now would be ruin, I affected to be much pleased with the proposal, and we parted.
CHAPTER XXXIII. A SOIRÉE IN THE GREAT WORLD
It was not without considerable trepidation and great misgiving that I awaited the evening. What subtlety might be in store for me, I could not guess; but it seemed clear that the young secretary meditated a heavy vengeance upon me, and would not lightly pardon the insult I had passed upon him.
“I have it,” thought I, after long and deep pondering: “his plan is to introduce me into a great and crowded assembly, with ministers, ambassadors, and generals, and then, in the face of a distinguished company, to proclaim me a cheat and impostor. He has doubtless the train all laid, only waiting for the match; and as the outrage will be inflicted conjointly and diplomatically, any demand for personal satisfaction will be vain, while a very slight hint at the Prefecture would suffice to have me expelled from the country.”
Should I confront this danger, or hazard the risk of such an exposure, or should I suffer judgment to be given against me by default? What a trying alternative! In the one case, a peril the greater for its shadowy, ill-defined consequences; in the other, certain and irretrievable disgrace! How often did I curse my ambitious yearning after wealth, that had not left me contented with my own fortune,—the hard-won, but incontestable, rewards of personal distinction. As the gallant officer who had gained each step upon the field of battle, and whose services had claimed the especial notice of his prince, I ought to have rested satisfied.
My promotion would have been certain and rapid, and what higher condition should I dare to aspire to than the command of a French regiment, or possibly some brilliant staff appointment? Why will not men look downward as they climb the mountain of life, and see the humble abyss from which they have issued? Were they but to do so, how many would be convinced that they had done enough, and not risk all by striving to mount higher! The son of the poor peasant a General of Division!—one among that decorated group surrounding the sovereign of a great nation!—was not this sufficient? And so much assuredly was within my reach, merely by length of life and the ordinary routine of events! And yet all this must I jeopardize for the sake of gold! And now what course should I adopt? My whole philosophy through life had been comprised in that one word which summed up all Marshal Blucher's “tactics,”—“Forwards!” It had sufficed for me in many a trying emergency,—it had cut the black knot of many a tangle;—should I not still abide by it? Of course. This was not the moment to abandon the bold policy.
From the “host of mine inn” I learned that the Spanish minister, whose receptions were little less splendid than those of the court itself, occupied a position which in countries of more rigid morality would have left his salons less crowded. In fact, it was asserted that he owed his eminent station to his having consented to marry a lady who had once been the rival of royalty itself in Spain, and whose banishment had been thus secured. Being still in the full pride of her beauty, and possessing great wealth, the “scandal” only added to her claim, in a society where notoriety of any kind is regarded as a distinction.
She was the reigning belle of the capital. Her word was law on every theme of fashion and taste; her opinions exerted a considerable influence on matters of high political bearing; and despite the ambiguity of her position, she was the arbitress of every claim to admission into that society which arrogated to itself the name of being “the best.”