‘Paul Massoni.’
What reply she returned to his note may easily be gathered from the following few words which passed between Gerald and herself a few mornings afterward.
They were seated in the library at their daily task, surrounded by letters, maps, and books, when Guglia said hastily, ‘Oh, here is a note from the Père Massoni to be replied to. He writes to ask when it may be the pleasure of his Royal Highness to receive the visit of two distinguished gentlemen from Ireland, who ardently entreat the honour of kissing his Royal Highness’s hand, and of carrying back with them such assurances as he might vouchsafe to utter of his feeling for those who have never ceased to deem themselves his subjects.’
‘Che seccatura!’ burst he out, as he rose impatiently from the table and paced the room; ‘if there be a mockery which I cannot endure, it is one of these audiences. I can sit here and fool myself all day long by poring over records of a has-been, or even tracing out the limits of what my ancestors possessed; but to play Prince at a mock levée—no, no, Guglia, you must not ask me this.’
There were days when this humour was strong on him, and she said no more.
CHAPTER XIX. TWO VISITORS
A FEW days after, and just as evening was falling, a travelling-carriage halted at the park gate of the Cardinal’s villa. Some slight injury to the harness occasioned a brief delay, and the travellers descended and proceeded leisurely at a walk towards the house. One was a very large, heavily-built man, far advanced in life, with immense bushy eyebrows of a brindled grey, giving to his face a darksome and almost forbidding expression, though the mouth was well rounded, and of a character that bespoke gentleness. He was much bent in the shoulders, and moved with considerable difficulty; but there was yet in his whole figure and air a certain dignity that announced the man of condition. Such, indeed, was Sir Capel Crosbie, once a beau and ornament of the French court in the days of the Regency. The other was a spare, thin, but yet wiry-looking man of about sixty-five or six, deeply pitted with small-pox, and disfigured by a strong squint, which, as the motions of his face were quick, imparted a character of restless activity and impatience to his appearance, that his nature, indeed, could not contradict. He was known as—that is, his passport called him—Mr. Simon Purcell; but he had many passports, and was frequently a grandee of Spain, a French abbé, a cabinet courier of Russia, and a travelling monk, these travesties being all easy to one who spoke fluently every dialect of every continental language and seemed to enjoy the necessity of a deception. You could mark at once in his gestures and his tone as he came forward the stamp of one who talked much and well. There was ready self-possession, that jaunty cheerfulness dashed with a certain earnest force, that bespoke the man who had achieved conversational success, and felt his influence in it.
The accident to the harness had seemingly interrupted an earnest conversation, for no sooner was he on the ground than Purcell resumed: ‘Take my word for it, baronet; it is always a bad game that does not admit of being played in two ways—-the towns to which only one road leads are never worth visiting.’
The other shook his head; but it was difficult to say whether in doubt of the meaning or dissent from the doctrine.