It was late in the afternoon when the doctor arose to take his departure, and, though somewhat wearied, his look was elated, and his face glowed with an expression of haughty satisfaction, such as it might have worn after a collegiate triumph years and years ago.
CHAPTER VI. MR. O'SHEA AT BADEN
Although Mr. O'Shea be not one of the most foreground figures in this piece, we are obliged to follow his fortunes for a brief space, and at a moment when our interests would more naturally call us in another direction. Thus, at a dinner-party, will it occasionally happen that our attention is engaged on one side, while our sympathies incline to the other; so, in life, the self-same incident continues to occur. We have said that he had many a sore misgiving about the enterprise he was engaged in. He felt that he was walking completely in the dark, and towards what he knew not. Mrs. Morris was, doubtless, a clever pilot, but she might mistake the course, she might go wrong in her soundings, and, lastly, she might chance to be on the shore when the ship was scuttled. These were dire mistrusts, not to say very ungallant suspicions, to haunt the heart and the head of a bridegroom; but—alas! that we must own it—Mr. O'Shea now occupied that equatorial position in life equally distant from the zones of youth and age, where men are most worldly, and disposed to take the most practical views of whatever touches their interests. It was very hard for him to believe that a woman of such consummate cleverness as the widow had ever written a line that could compromise her. He took a man's view of the question, and fancied that a cool head is always cool, and a calculating heart always alive to its arithmetic. These letters, therefore, most probably referred to money transactions; they were, in fact, either bills, or securities, or promises to pay, under circumstances, possibly, not the pleasantest to make public. In such affairs he had always deemed a compromise the best course; why had she not given him a clearer insight into his mission? In fact, he was sailing with sealed orders, to be opened only on reaching a certain latitude. “At all events, I can do nothing till she writes to me;” and with this grain of comfort he solaced himself as he went along his road, trying to feel at ease, and doing his utmost to persuade himself that he was a lucky fellow, and “on the best thing” that had ever turned up in his life.
It is unpleasant for us to make the confession, but in his heart of hearts Mr. O'Shea thought of a mode of guiding himself through his difficulties, which assuredly was little in keeping with the ardor of a devoted lover. The ex-Member for Inch was a disciple of that sect—not a very narrow one—which firmly believes that men have a sort of masonic understanding amongst them always to be true to each other against a woman, and that out of a tacit compact of mutual protection they will always stand by each other against the common enemy. If, therefore, he could make Paten's acquaintance, be intimate with him, and on terms of confidence, he might learn all the bearings of this case, and very probably get no inconsiderable insight into the fair widow's life and belongings.
Amidst a vast conflict of such thoughts as these he rolled along over the Splügen Alps, down the Via Mala, and arrived at last at Baden. The season was at its full flood. There were a brace of kings there, and a whole covey of Serene Highnesses, not to speak of flocks of fashionables from every land of Europe. There was plenty of gossip,—the gossip of politics, of play, of private scandal. The well-dressed world was amusing itself at the top of its bent, and every one speaking ill of his neighbor to his own heart's content. Whatever, however, may be the grand event of Europe,—the outbreak of a war, or a revolution, the dethronement of a king, or the murder of an emperor,—at such places as these the smallest incident of local origin will far out-top it in interest; and so, although the world at this moment had a very fair share of momentous questions at issue, Baden had only tongues and ears for one, and that was the lucky dog that went on breaking the bank at rouge-et-noir about twice a week.
Ludlow Paten was the man of the day. Now it was his equipage, his horses; now it was the company he entertained at dinner yesterday, the fabulous sum he had given for a diamond ring, the incredible offer he had made for a ducal palace on the Rhine. Around these and such-like narratives there floated a sort of atmosphere of an imaginative order: how he had made an immense wager to win a certain sum by a certain day, and now only wanted some trifle of ten or twelve thousand pounds to complete it; how, if he continued to break the bank so many times more, M. Bennasset, the proprietor, was to give him fifty thousand francs a year for life to buy him off, with twenty other variations on these themes as to the future application of the money, some averring it was to ransom his wife from the Moors, and others, as positively, to pay off a sum with which he had absconded in his youth from a great banking-house in London; and, last of all, a select few had revived the old diabolic contract on his behalf, and were firm in declaring that after he retired to his room at night he was heard for hours counting over his gains, and disputing with the Evil One, who always came for his share of the booty, and rigidly insisted on having it in gold. Now, it was strange enough that these last, however wild the superstructure of their belief, had really a small circumstance in their favor, which was that Paten had been met with three or four times in most unfrequented places, walking with a man of very wretched appearance and most forbidding aspect, who covered his face when looked at, and was only to be caught sight of by stealth. The familiar, as he was now called, had been seen by so many that all doubt as to his existence was quite removed.
These were the stories which met O'Shea on his arrival, and which formed the table-talk of the hotel he dined in; narratives, of course, graced with all the illustrative powers of those who told them. One fact, however, impressed itself strongly on his mind,—that with a man so overwhelmed by the favors of Fortune, any chance of forming acquaintance casually was out of the question. If he were cleaned out of his last Napoleon, one could know him readily enough; but to the fellow who can break the bank at will, archdukes and princes are the only intimates. His first care was to learn his appearance. Nor had he long to wait; the vacant chair beside the croupier marked the place reserved for the great player, whose game alone occupied the attention of the bystanders, and whose gains and losses were all marked and recorded by an expectant public. “Here he comes! That is he, leaning on the Prince of Tours, the man with the large beard!” whispered a person in O'Shea's hearing; and now a full, large man, over-weighty, as it seemed, for his years, pushed the crowd carelessly aside, and seated himself at the table. The low murmur that went round showed that the great event of the evening was about to “come off,” and that the terrible conflict of Luck against Luck was now to be fought out.
More intent upon regarding the man himself than caring to observe his game, O'Shea stationed himself in a position to watch his features, scan their whole expression, and mark every varying change impressed upon them. His experience of the world had made him a tolerable physiognomist, and he read the man before him reasonably well. “He is not a clever fellow,” thought he, “he is only a resolute one; and, even as such, not persistent. Still, he will be very hard to deal with; he distrusts every man.” Just as O'Shea was thus summing up to himself, an exclamation from the crowd startled him. The stranger had lost an immense “coup;” the accumulation of five successful passes had been swept away at once, and several minutes were occupied in counting the enormous pile of Napoleons he had pushed across the table.
The player sat apparently unmoved; his face, so far as beard and moustache permitted it to be seen, was calm and impassive; but O'Shea remarked a fidgety uneasiness in his hands, and a fevered impatience in the way he continued to draw off and on a ring which he wore on his finger. The game began again, but he did not bet; and murmuring comments around the room went on, some averring that he was a bad loser, who never had nerve for his reverses, and others as stoutly maintaining that he was such a consummate master of himself that he was never carried away by impulse, but, seeing fortune unfavorable, had firmness enough to endure his present defeat, and wait for a better moment. Gradually the interest of the bystanders took some other direction, and Paten was unobserved, as he sat, to all seeming, inattentive to everything that went on before him. Suddenly, however, he placed twenty thousand francs in notes upon the table, and said, “Red.” The “Black” won; and he pushed back his chair, arose, and strolled carelessly into another room.