“Oh, you mean the lank party who snuffles the responses with such oleaginous sanctimony. Well, I bet you 2 to 1 in ponies that I have him roaring drunk before a month’s over.”
“I won’t take the bet,” said Brogten, “because I believe you’ll succeed.”
“I’ll t–t–take it for the fun,” said Fitzurse.
“Done, then!” said Bruce.
So Bruce, pour passer le temps, deliberately undertook the corruption of a human soul. That soul might have been low enough already; for Hazlet was, as we have seen, mean-hearted and malicious, and in him, although unknown to himself, the garb of the Pharisee but concealed the breast of the hypocrite. But yet Hazlet was free, and if Bruce had not undertaken the devil’s work, might have been free to his life’s end, from all gross forms of transgression—from all the more flagrant and open delinquencies that lay waste the inner sanctities of a fallen human soul.
He was an easy subject for Bruce’s machinations, and those machinations were conceived and carried on with consummate and characteristic cleverness. Bruce did not spread his net in the sight of the bird, but set to work with wariness and caution. He determined to try the arts of fascination, not of force. The thought of the desperate wickedness involved in his attempt either never crossed his mind, or, if it did, was rejected as the feeble suggestion of an over-scrupulous conscience. Bruce pretended at least to fancy that the basis of all men’s characters was identical, and that, as they only differed in external manifestations, it made very little difference whether Hazlet became “fast” or continued “slow.” “Fast” and “slow” were the mild euphemisms with which Bruce expressed the slight distinction between a vicious and a virtuous life.
At hall—the grand place for rencontres—he managed to get a seat next to his victim, and began at once to treat him with that appearance of easy and well-bred familiarity which he had learnt in London circles. He threw a gentle expression of interest into his face and voice, he listened with deference to Hazlet’s remarks, he addressed several questions to him, thanked him politely for all his information, and then adroitly introduced some delicate compliments on the agreeableness of Hazlet’s society. His bait took completely; Hazlet, whom most men snubbed, was quite flustered with gratified vanity at the condescending notice of so unexceptionable a man of fashion as the handsome and noted Vyvyan Bruce. “At last,” thought Hazlet, “men are beginning to appreciate my intellectual powers.”
After continuing this process for some days, until Hazlet was unalterably convinced that he must be a vastly agreeable and attractive person, Bruce asked him to come to breakfast, and invited Brogten and Fitzurse to meet him. He calculated justly that Hazlet, accustomed only to the very quiet neighbourhood of a country village, would be duly impressed with the presence and acquaintance of a live lord; and he instructed both his guests in the manner in which they should treat the subject of their experiment. Hazlet thought he had never enjoyed a breakfast party so much. There was a delicious spice of worldliness in the topics of conversation which was quite refreshing to him, accustomed as he was to the somewhat droning moralisms of his “congenial friends.” Nothing which could deeply shock his prejudices was ever alluded to, but the discussions which were introduced came to him with all the charm of novelty and awakened curiosity.
Hazlet never could endure being a silent or inactive listener while a conversation was going forward. No matter how complete his ignorance of the subject, he generally managed to hazard some remarks. Bruce talked a good deal about actors and theatres, and Hazlet had never seen a theatre in his life. He did not like, however, to confess this fact, and, after a little hesitation, began to talk as if he were an habitué. The dramatic criticisms, which he occasionally saw in the papers, furnished him with just materials enough to amuse Bruce and the others at his assumption of “savoir vivre,” and to furnish a laugh at his expense the moment he was gone; but of this he was blissfully unconscious, and he rather plumed himself on his knowledge of the world. He had yet to learn the lesson that consistency alone can secure respect. He had indeed ventured at first to remark, “Don’t you think the stage a little—just a little—objectionable?”
“Objectionable,” said Bruce, with a bland smile; “oh, my dear fellow, what can you mean? Why, the stage is a mirror of the world, and to show virtue her own image is one of its main objects.”