Very little time did Grog give himself for calmer reflection; away he went at full speed to sketch out their future life. They were to make the tour of Europe, winning all before them. All the joyous part, all the splendor of equipage, retinue, mode of life, and outlay being dictated by Beecher; all the more business detail, the play and the money-getting, devolving upon Davis. Baden, Ems, Wiesbaden, Hamburg, and Aix,—all glowed in the descriptions like fields of foretold glory. How they were to outshine Princes in magnificence and Royal Highnesses in display; the envy of Beecher, of his unvarying luck; the splendor of all his belongings; Lizzy's beauty, tool What a page would he fill in the great gossip calendar of Europe!
Well Davis knew how to feed the craving vanity of that weak nature, whose most ardent desire was to be deemed cunning and sharp, the cautious reserve of prudent men in his company being a tribute to his acuteness, the dearest his heart could covet Oh, if he longed for anything as success, it was for a time when his coming would spread a degree of terror at a play-table, and men would rise rather than risk their fortune against his! Should such a moment ever be his? Was that great triumph ever to befall him? And all this as the husband of Lizzy Davis!
“Ay!” said Grog, as he read and traced each succeeding emotion in that transparent nature,—“ay! that's what may be called life; and when we 've done Europe, smashed every bank on the Continent, we 'll cross the Atlantic, and give Jonathan a 'touch of our quality.' I know all their games well, and I 've had my 'three bullets and a poker' before now on a Mississippi steamer! Your Yankee likes faro, and I've a new cabal to teach him; in short, my boy, there's a roving commission of fun before us, and if it don't pay, my name ain't Davis!”
“Was this your scheme, then, Grog,” asked Beecher, “when you told me at Brussels that you could make a man of me?”
“It was, my boy,” cried Davis, eagerly. “You 've guessed it. There was only one obstacle to the success of the plan at that time, and this exists no longer.”
“What was the obstacle you speak of?”
“Simply, that so long as you fancied yourself next in succession to a peerage, you 'd never lay yourself down regularly to your work; you'd say, 'Lackington can't live forever; he's almost twenty years my senior. I must be the Viscount yet. Why should I, therefore, cumber myself with cares that I have no need of, and involve myself amongst people I'll have to cut one of these days? No, I'll just make a waiting race of it, and be patient.' Now, however, that you can't count upon this prospect,—now that to-morrow or next day will declare to the world that Henry Hastings Beecher is just Henry Hastings Beecher, and not Viscount Lackington, and that the Honorable Annesley is just Annesley, and no more,—now, I say, that you see this clearly with your own eyes, you 'll buckle to, and do your work manfully. And there was another thing—” And here Davis paused, and seemed to meditate.
“What was that, Grog? Be candid, old fellow, and tell me all.”
“So I will, then,” resumed Davis. “That other thing was this. So long as you were the great man in prospective, and might some fine day be a Lord, you could always persuade yourself—or some one else could persuade you—that Kit Davis was hanging on you just for your rank; that he wanted the intimacy of a man in your station, and so on. Now, if you ever came to believe this, there would have been an end of all confidence between us; and without confidence, what can a fellow do for his pal? This was, therefore, the obstacle; and even if you could have got over it, I couldn't. No, hang me if I could! I was always saying to myself, 'It's all very nice and smooth now, Kit, between you and Beecher,—you eat, drink, and sleep together,—but wait till he turns the corner, old fellow, and see if he won't give you the cold shoulder.”
“You could n't believe—”