“Oh,” replied he, carelessly, “the gossip of a mess is but little to be relied on. The sabreurs will always tell you that the order to march is given.”
“I don't mean that,” said I, haughtily. “My information has a higher source, the highest of all,—Greneral Bonaparte himself!”
“How! what! Bonaparte himself!”
“Listen to me,” said I; and hurried on by a foolish vanity, and a strange desire I cannot explain to make a confidant in what I felt to be a secret too weighty for my own bosom, I told him all that I had overheard when seated behind the screen in the salon at the Tuileries.
“You heard this,—you, yourself?” cried he, as his eyes flashed, and he grasped my arm with an eager grip.
“Yes, with my own ears I heard it,” said I, half trembling at the disclosure I made, and ready to give all I possessed to recall my words.
“My friend, my dear friend,” said he, impetuously, “you must hesitate no longer; be one of us.”
I started at the words, and growing pale with agitation as the very thought of the importance of what I had related flashed across me, I stammered out, “Take care what you propose to me, De Beauvais. I do not, I cannot, fathom your meaning now; but if I thought that anything like treachery to the First Consul—that anything traitorous to the great cause of liberty for which he has fought and conquered—was meditated, I 'd go forthwith and tell him, word for word, all I have spoken now, even though the confession might, as it would, humble me forever, and destroy all my future hope of advancement.”
“And be well laughed at for your pains, foolish boy!” said he, throwing himself back in his chair, and bursting out into a fit of laughter. “No, no, Burke; you must not do anything half so ridiculous, or my pretty cousin could never look at you without a smile ever after. And à propos, of that, when shall I present you? That splendid jacket, and all that finery of dolman there, will make sad work of her poor heart.”
I blushed deeply at the silly impetuosity I had betrayed myself into, and muttered some equally silly apology for it. Still, young as I was, I could perceive that my words made no common impression on him, and would have given my best blood to recall them.