In the winter, on the contrary, except the glass which opened into the conservatory, all was closed; the transparent silk of the blinds, the heavy mass of lace and muslin curtains, rendered the light still more mysterious; on every disposable place large masses of exotics seemed to spring out of vases glittering with gold and enamel.
Such was the viscount. At Athens he would have been, doubtless, admired, exalted, deified, as the equal of Aleibiades; at the time of which we speak, the viscount was nothing more than an unworthy forger, a miserable cheat.
The first story had an entirely different appearance, altogether masculine. There was nothing coquettish, nothing feminine; the furniture was of a style simple and serene; for ornaments, fire-arms, pictures of race-horses, which had earned for the viscount a good number of gold and silver vases, placed on the tables; the tabogie (smoking-room) and the saloon for play joined a lively-looking dining-room, where eight persons (the number always strictly limited when it was a question of a choice meal) had often appreciated the excellence of the cook, and the not less excellent merit of the cellar, before commencing with him some games of whist for five or six hundred louis, or to rattle the noisy dice box.
The apartments being thus thrown open to the reader, he will now please to follow us to more familiar regions, to enter the carriage court, and mount the little staircase which leads to the very comfortable room of Edward Patterson, chief of the stables.
This illustrious coachman had invited to breakfast M. Boyer, confidential valet de chambre of the viscount. A very pretty English servant-girl having retired, after having brought in a silver teapot, our two gentlemen were left alone.
Edward was about forty years of age; never did a more skillful or fatter coachman cause his seat to groan under a rotundity more imposing, nor to ornament with a powdered wig a face more rubicund, nor to collect more elegantly, in his left hand, the quadruple ribbons of a four-in-hand; as good a judge of horses as Tattersall of London, having been, in his youth, as good a trainer as the celebrated elder Chifney, the viscount had found in Edward a rare thing, an excellent coachman and a man very capable of directing the training of some race-horses which he had had for wagers. Edward, when he did not display his sumptuous brown and silver livery on the emblazoned hammer-cloth of his seat, looked very much like an honest English farmer; it is under this guise we now shall present him to our readers, adding, that in his broad and red face one could easily perceive the diabolical and unmerciful cunning of a horse-jockey.
M. Boyer, his guest, the confidential valet, was a tall, slender man, with gray hair, rather bald, and with a sly, cool, discreet, and reserved expression; he used very choice language, had polite, easy manners, rather literary, political opinions of the Conservative stamp, and could creditably play his part of first violin in a quartet of amateurs; at short intervals he took, with the best grace in the world, a pinch of snuff from a golden box mounted with fine pearls, after which he brushed negligently, with the back of his hand, the folds of his fine linen shirt, quite as fine as that of his master.
"Do you know, my dear Edward," said Boyer, "that your servant, Betty, makes quite a supportable plain cook?"
"She is a good girl," said Edward, who spoke French perfectly, "and I shall take her with me if I should decide on housekeeping; and on this subject, since we are here alone, my dear Boyer, let us talk business; you understand it very well."
"Why, yes, a little," said Boyer, modestly, and taking a pinch of snuff. "That is learned so naturally, when one occupies himself with the affairs of others."