'I hesitated for a second, and then said, 'No. 4 Place Vendôme.'
CHAPTER LX. DISCLOSURES
I have more than once heard physicians remark the singular immunity a fool's skull seems to possess from the evil effects of injury—as if Nature, when denying a governing faculty, had, in kind compensation, imparted a triple thickness to the head thus exposed. It is well known how among the educated and thinking classes many maladies are fatal which are comparatively innocuous among those whose hands alone are called on to labour. A very ingenious theory might be spun from this fact, to the manifest self-gratulation of foxhunters, sailors, gentlemen who assault the new police, tithe-proctors, and others. For the present I have no further use for the remark than as it bore upon the head-piece of Lord Dudley de Vere, whose admirable developments had received little or no damage from the rude assault of his companion. When he awoke the next morning, he was only aware that something unusual had occurred; and gradually by 'trying back' in his sensations, he remembered every particle that took place—had the clearest recollection of the 'run upon red'; knew the number of bottles of champagne he had partaken of; and was only puzzled by one thing—what could possibly have suggested the courage with which he confronted Burke, and the hardihood that led to insulting him. As to any awkwardness at being brought home to the house of the person he had himself so ill-treated, he never felt anything approaching to it; the extent of his reasoning on this point only went to his satisfaction that 'some one' took care of him, and that he was not left to lie on the floor of the salon.
This admirable philosophy of De Vere served in a great measure to relieve me from the constraint I felt in presenting myself before him, and soon put me perfectly at my ease in our interview. After learning, that, except some headaching sensations, the only inconvenience he experienced was an unconquerable thirst, I touched lightly on the cause of his misfortune; when, what was my astonishment to discern that he not only did not entertain a particle of ill-will towards the man who had so brutally ill-treated him, but actually grew warm in his panegyric of Burkes consummate skill and address at play—such qualities in his estimation being well worthy to cover any small blemishes of villainy his character might suffer under.
'I say, don't you think Burke a devilish sharp fellow? He's up to everything, and so cool, so confoundedly cool! Not last night, though; no, by Jove! he lost temper completely. I shall be marked with that knock, eh? Damn me, it was too bad; he must apologise for it. You know he was drunk, and somehow he was all wrong the whole evening; he wouldn't let me back the “rouge,” and such a run—you saw that, I suppose?'
I assented with a nod, for I still hesitated how far I should communicate to him my knowledge of Burke's villainy towards myself.
'By-the-bye, it's rather awkward my being here; you know your people have cut me. Don't you think I might get a cab to bring me over to the Rue d'Alger?'
There was something which touched me in the simplicity of this remark, and I proceeded to assure him that any former impressions of my friends would not be remembered against him at that moment.
'Oh, that I'm sure of; no one ever thinks it worth while to bear malice against a poor devil like me. But if I'd have backed the red——'