'Rouse yourself, Jack,' said he, at length. 'This depression is unworthy of you, had you even cause for grief. There's many a heart heavier than your own, my boy, where the lip is smiling this minute.'
There was a tone of deep affliction in the cadence of his voice as these words fell from him, and he turned away his head as he spoke. Then rallying in an instant, he added—
'Do you know, our dear friend Mrs. Paul has scarcely ventured to acknowledge me to-night, and I feel a kind of devilish spirit of vengeance working within me in consequence. To out me! I that trained her infant mind to greatness; that actually smuggled for her a contraband viceroy, and brought him alive into her dominions! What dire ingratitude! Come, what say you to champagne?'
He poured me out a large glassful as he spoke, and, filling his own, called out, laughing—
'Here, I give you a toast—“La Vendetta!” eh, Jack? Corsican vengeance on all who maltreat us!'
Glass after glass followed; and I felt my brain, instead of being excited, grow calmer, steadier; a firm and determined resolution usurped the flitting thoughts and wandering fancies of before.
'They're moving towards the supper-room,' said O'Grady, who for some time past had talked away, without my paying any attention to what he said.
As we descended the stairs, I heard my mother's carriage announced, and could just see her and my cousin handed to it by some Austrian officers as we entered the supper-room.
The incessant crash and din of the enormous banquet-ing-room, its crowd and heat, its gorgeous table-equipage and splendid guests, were scarce noticed by me as I followed O'Grady half mechanically towards the end of the room. For some time I remained stupidly unconscious of all around; and it was only after a very considerable time that I descried that immediately in front of where we stood Mrs. Paul Rooney was seated—the Emperor of Russia on her right, the King of Prussia on her left hand; Swartzenburg, Blucher, Talleyrand, Nesselrode, and many others equally distinguished occupying places along the board. Her jocund laugh and merry voice, indeed, first attracted my attention.
'By Jove! she does it admirably,' said O'Grady, who for full five minutes had been most critically employed scrutinising Mrs. Paul's manner. 'Do you remark the tact with which she graduates her attentions to the emperor and the king? And look at the hauteur of her bearing to old Blucher! But, hush! what's coming?'