“Lord bless you, Master Digby! I 've known him these fifteen years. I knew him when he came out, just a boy like, to Lord Colthorpe's embassy. He and I is like pals.”
“You have known me also as a boy, Nixon,” said I, haughtily; “and yet, I promise you, I 'll not permit you to speak of me as Norcott, when I am a man.”
“No fear of that, sir, you may depend on 't,” said he, with humility; but there was a malicious twinkle in his eye, and a firm compression of the lip as he withdrew, that did not leave my mind the whole day after. Indeed, I recognized that his face had assumed the selfsame look of insolent familiarity it wore when he spoke of Cleremont.
The evening of that day was passed filling up the cards of invitation,—a process which amused me greatly, affording, as it did, a sort of current critique on the persons whose names came up for notice, and certainly, if I were to judge of their eligibility only by what I heard of their characters, I might well feel amazed why they were singled out for attentions. They were marquises and counts, however, chevaliers of various orders, grand cordons and “hautes charges,” so that their trespasses or their shortcomings had all been enacted in the world of good society, and with each other as accomplices or victims. There were a number of contingencies, too, attached to almost every name. There must be high play for the Russian envoy, flirting for the French minister's wife, iced drinks for the Americans, and scandal and Ostend oysters for everybody. There was scarcely a good word for any one, and yet the most eager anxiety was expressed that they would all come. Immense precautions had been taken to fix a day when there was nothing going on at court or in the court circle. It was difficult to believe that pleasure could be planned with such heart-burning and bitterness. There was scarcely a detail that did not come associated with something that reflected on the morals or the manners of the dear friends we were entreating to honor us; and for the life of me I did not know why such pains were taken to secure the presence of people for whom none had a good wish nor a single kindly thought.
My father took very little part in the discussion; he sat there with a sort of proud indifference, as though the matter had little interest for him, and if a doubt were expressed as to the likelihood of this or that person's acceptance, he would superciliously break in with, “He 'll come, sir: I 'll answer for that. I have never yet played to empty benches.”
This vain and haughty speech dwelt in my mind for many a day, and showed me how my father deemed that it was not his splendid style of living, his exquisite dinners, and his choice wines that drew guests around him, but his own especial qualities as host and entertainer.
“But that it involves the bore of an audience, I'd ask the king; I could give him some Château d'Yquem very unlike his own, and such as, I'll venture to say, he never tasted,” said he, affectedly.
“So you are going to bring out the purple seal?” cried Cleremont.
“I might for royalty, sir; but not for such people as I read of in that list there.”
“Why, here are two Dukes with their Duchesses, Marquises and Counts by the score, half-a-dozen ministers plenipotentiary, and a perfect cloud of chamberlains and court swells.”