“For an anti-monarchist, he turns up the king wonderfully often at ecarte” said Haggerstone, in a low muttering, only overheard by Martha.
“I don't think the demo-demo-demo” But before Purvis had finished his polysyllabic word, the company had time to make their farewell speeches and depart. Indeed, as the servant came to extinguish the lamps, he found the patient Purvis very red in the face, and with other signs of excitement, deeply seated in a chair, and as if struggling against an access of suffocation.
What the profound sentiment which he desired to enunciate might therefore be, is lost to history, and this true narrative is unable to record.
CHAPTER XXVIII. THE VISCOUNT'S VISION.
WHEN Lord Norwood arrived at the Mazzarini Palace, he was surprised not to find the usual half-dozen carriages of the habitues drawn up in the courtyard, and still more so to learn that her Ladyship did not receive that evening. He ascended to George Onslow's apartment, and discovered that he had dined with Prince Midchekoff, and not yet returned. Not knowing how to spend the hours, so much earlier than those of his usually retiring to rest, he lighted a cigar, and threw himself on a sofa before the fire.
The reveries of men who live much in the world are seldom very agreeable. The work of self-examination comes with a double penalty when it is rarely exercised, and the heavy arrears of time are formidable scores to confront. Lord Norwood was no exception to this theory. Not that he was one to waste time or temper in self-reproaches. The bygone was essentially with him the “irrevocable.” It might, it is true, occasionally suggest a hint for the future, but it never originated a sorrow for the past. His philosophy was a very brief code, and comprised itself in this, “that he did n't think well of himself, but thought worse of all others.” All that he had seen of life was duplicity, falsehood, selfishness, and treachery. In different stations these characteristics took different forms; and what was artfully cloaked in courtesy by the lord was displayed in all its naked deformity by the plebeian.
He might have conducted himself respectably enough had he been rich, at least he fervently believed so; but he was poor, and therefore driven to stratagems to maintain his position in society. Cheated by his guardians and neglected by his tutor, he was sent into the world half ruined, and wholly ignorant, to become at first a victim, and afterwards the victimizer. With no spirit of retributive vengeance, there was nothing of reprisal in his line of conduct, he simply thought that such was the natural and inevitable course of events, and that every man begins as dupe, and ends as knave. The highest flight of the human mind, in his esteem, was successful hypocrisy; and although without the plastic wit or the actual knowledge of life which are required well to sustain a part, he had contrived to impose upon a very large number of persons who looked up to his rank; for, strange enough, many who would not have been duped by a commoner, fell easy victims to the arts of “my Lord.”
The value of his title he understood perfectly. He knew everything it could, and everything it could not, do for him. He was aware that the aristocracy of England would stand by one of their order through many vicissitudes, and that he who is born to a coronet has a charmed life, in circumstances where one less noble must perish ingloriously. He knew, too, how, for very shame's sake, they would screen one of themselves, and by a hundred devices seem to contradict before the world what they lament over behind its back; and, lastly, he knew well that he had always a title and a lineage to bestow, and that the peerage was the great prize among the daughters of men.
Now, latterly, he had been pushing prerogative somewhat too far. He had won large sums from young men not out of their teens; he had been associated in play transactions with names less than reputable; and, finally, having backed a stable to an immense amount at Newmarket, had levanted on the day of his losing. He had done the act deliberately and calmly. It was a coup which, if successful, replaced him in credit and affluence; if a failure, it only confirmed the wavering judgment of his set, and left him to shift for the future in a different sphere; for, while a disgraced viscount is very bad company for viscounts, he is often a very welcome guest amongst that amiably innocent class who think the privileges of the aristocracy include bad morals with blue ribbons.