They found assembled at the appointed hour a party of about thirty individuals. The dinner was sumptuous, the wines superb. At the end of the banquet the company adjourned to another room, where play was proposed and immediately commenced. His Imperial Highness did not join in the game, but, seated in a corner of the apartment, was surrounded by his aides-de-camp, whose business was to bring their master constant accounts of the fortunes of the table and the fate of his bets. His Highness did not stake.
Vivian soon found that the game was played on a very different scale at the New House to what it was at the Redoute. He spoke most decidedly to the Baron of his detestation of gambling, and expressed his unwillingness to play; but the Baron, although he agreed with him in his sentiments, advised him to conform for the evening to the universal custom. As he could afford to lose, he consented, and staked boldly. This night very considerable sums were lost and won; but none returned home greater winners than Mr. St. George and Vivian Grey.
CHAPTER X
The first few days of an acquaintance with a new scene of life and with new characters generally appear to pass very slowly; not certainly from the weariness which they induce, but rather from the keen attention which every little circumstance commands. When the novelty has worn off, when we have discovered that the new characters differ little from all others we have met before, and that the scene they inhabit is only another variety of the great order we have so often observed, we relapse into our ancient habits of inattention; we think more of ourselves, and less of those we meet; and musing our moments away in reverie, or in a vain attempt to cheat the coming day of the monotony of the present one, we begin to find that the various-vested hours have bounded and are bounding away in a course at once imperceptible, uninteresting, and unprofitable. Then it is that, terrified at our nearer approach to the great river whose dark windings it seems the business of all to forget, we start from our stupor to mourn over the rapidity of that collective sum of past-time, every individual hour of which we have in turn execrated for its sluggishness.
Vivian had now been three weeks at Ems, and the presence of Lady Madeleine Trevor and her cousin alone induced him to remain. Whatever the mystery existing between Lady Madeleine and the Baron, his efforts to attach himself to her party had been successful. The great intimacy subsisting between the Baron and her brother materially assisted in bringing about this result. For the first fortnight the Baron was Lady Madeleine’s constant attendant in the evening promenade, and sometimes in the morning walk; and though there were few persons whose companionship could be preferred to that of Baron von Konigstein, still Vivian sometimes regretted that his friend and Mr. St. George had not continued their rides. The presence of the Baron seemed always to have an unfavourable influence upon the spirits of Miss Fane, and the absurd and evident jealousy of Mr. St. George prevented Vivian from finding in her agreeable conversation some consolation for the loss of the sole enjoyment of Lady Madeleine’s exhilarating presence. Mr. St. George had never met Vivian’s advances with cordiality, and he now treated him with studied coldness.
The visits of the gentlemen to the New House had been frequent. The saloon of the Grand Duke was open every evening, and in spite of his great distaste for the fatal amusement which was there invariably pursued, Vivian found it impossible to decline frequently attending without subjecting his motives to painful misconception. His extraordinary fortune did not desert him, and rendered his attendance still more a duty. The Baron was not so successful as on his first evening’s venture at the Redoute; but Mr. St. George’s star remained favourable. Of Essper Vivian had seen little. In passing through the bazaar one morning, which he seldom did, he found, to his surprise, that the former conjuror had doffed his quaint costume, and was now attired in the usual garb of men of his condition of life. As Essper was busily employed at the moment, Vivian did not stop to speak to him; but he received a respectful bow. Once or twice, also, he had met Essper in the Baron’s apartments; and he seemed to have become a very great favourite with the servants of his Excellency and the Chevalier de Boeffleurs, particularly with his former butt, Ernstorff, to whom he now behaved with great deference.
For the first fortnight the Baron’s attendance on Lady Madeleine was constant. After this time he began to slacken in his attentions. He first disappeared from the morning walks, and yet he did not ride; he then ceased from joining the party at Lady Madeleine’s apartments in the evening, and never omitted increasing the circle at the New House for a single night. The whole of the fourth week the Baron dined with his Imperial Highness. Although the invitation had been extended to all the gentlemen from the first, it had been agreed that it was not to be accepted, in order that the ladies should not find their party in the saloon less numerous or less agreeable. The Baron was the first to break through a rule which he had himself proposed, and Mr. St. George and the Chevalier de Boeffleurs soon followed his example.
“Mr. Grey,” said Lady Madeleine one evening, as she was about to leave the gardens, “we shall be happy to see you to-night, if you are not engaged.”
“I fear that I am engaged,” said Vivian; for the receipt of some letters from England made him little inclined to enter into society.