There was something so odd and conscious in his manner of speaking, that Alice exclaimed, “She fell in love with you, I am certain of it. Come, confess now that I am right.”
“Do you think that every woman must needs be as foolish as yourself, you silly child?” was the uncomplimentary reply. “I can assure you, Miss Crofton is as utterly unlike you in tastes, habits, and opinions, as she is in person; and that is a pretty considerable assertion, I take it. And now it is time for you to get ready for our last drive in the Bois de Boulogne, and I must go out and buy a clean pair of gloves; so for ten minutes I shall wish you an affectionate farewell.”
Thus saying, Harry quitted the apartment; and Alice, going to prepare for her drive, forgot, for the time, her husband’s mysterious intimacy with Miss Crofton—it occurred to her afterwards, indeed, when——, but we must not anticipate. The next morning saw them en route. As they were about to embark at Boulogne, a sensation was created, at the hotel at which they waited till the tide served for the packet to start, by the arrival of a travelling carriage drawn by four horses, with a lady inside, and her soubrette, and an outlandish, courier-like creature in the rumble.
“By Jove!” exclaimed Harry, who, ensconced behind a window-curtain, had been examining the turn out with all the interest with which a position of enforced idleness invests every trifle. “By the powers there’s a foreign coronet on the carriage, and ditto on Don Whiskerando’s buttons! I wonder what she is like! Young and pretty, by all that is interesting and romantic! I dare say she is going to cross in the same boat as we are. Yes! Whiskerandos is gesticulating and explaining, and the landlord waves his hand in the direction of the pier. Now comes the bore of being a married man: what a splendid adventure I am shut out from! If I were but single, an opportunity now offers of captivating a lovely and accomplished foreign Countess, with a dowry of diamonds in her dressing-box, and a gold mine in her precious pocket: there’s a good opening for a nice young man!”
“Pray avail yourself of it,” returned Alice. “Don’t let me be any obstacle; carry off the Countess, and I will remain behind with that noble creature whom you style Don Whiskerandos. I prefer him infinitely to you, he is so like a very well-trained baboon.”
Harry’s conjecture that the mysterious Countess meant to cross in the same vessel with, himself and his wife proved correct; for, scarcely had he seen Alice comfortably established on a snug bench, where, if the sea-fiend should be so uncourteous as to attack her, she could on an emergency lie down, when daintily tripped along the human chicken-ladder which connected the vessel with the shore, the graceful, bien chaussé, little feet of the Countess. Then ensued a grand scene. Whiskerandos either did not comprehend, or refused to comply with some demand of the hotel commissionaire, who had taken upon himself the charge of the baggage, and who accordingly resisted his conveying his mistress’s luggage on board. Whiskerandos grimaced and chattered in a polyglot jargon, apparently compounded of every language under heaven, and utterly incomprehensible to the deepest philologist extant: the commissionaire was immovable. Whiskerandos implored—the commissionaire was deaf to his entreaties. Whiskerandos stormed—the commissionaire was inexorable. Whiskerandos, unable to endure his fate with calmness, went raving mad—he swore oaths so replete with improbable consonants that it is only a wonder they did not smash every tooth in his head; he stumped, shrieked, clenched his fists, and shook them in the face of his adversary—in vain; the commissionaire remained adamant, and prepared actually to carry off the offending luggage.
“Look at that ape,” observed Harry to his wife, who was watching the scene, half in amusement, half in terror; “he’s going into sky-blue fits apparently: of all absurd sights an angry foreigner is the most ridiculous. Do you see his moustaches?—they actually stand on end with fury, like the hairs on the tail of an excited cat. But see, the Don appeals to his mistress; the Countess will have to settle the affair in propriâ personâ.” This affair, however, was not to be arranged so easily; for the inflexible commissionaire proved as deaf to the entreaties of the mistress as he had shown himself to the threatenings of the man; and the Countess, if countess she was, having remonstrated to no purpose in a gentle, timid voice, looked helplessly round, as though she would appeal to society at large to aid her in her difficulty.
“Poor thing! those men have frightened her; she looks ready to cry!” exclaimed Alice. “Harry, dear, do go and see if you cannot assist her—you understand how to manage those people so well; besides, they always attend to a gentleman.”
Thus urged, Harry crossed the deck, and Alice saw him take off his hat and address the interesting foreigner; she bowed her head, and was evidently making a grateful answer; then Harry turned to the disputants, who both assailed him with a volley of words, upon which he first silenced Whiskerandos, then he exchanged a few cabalistic sentences with the commissionaire, and slipped a talisman into his hand, whereupon, with the celerity of some harlequinade trick, he changed into an amiable, obliging creature, only too anxious to please everybody, and went off, patting Whiskerandos on the back, and calling him a brave garçon, to assist with his own silver-absorbing fingers in conveying the Countess’s luggage on board. Then the Countess overwhelmed Harry with thanks, and Harry smiled benignantly upon the Countess, and they “talked conversation” for a few minutes; after which they both looked at Alice, and Harry with his best company manner on (which was merely his own natural manner brushed smooth), crossed over to her.
“She is really a Countess,” he began, “and a very charming, refined style of young woman too. She wants to be introduced to you, so come along.”