There was grave matter, he thought, for reflection in the whole business, and his manner was more sedate than usual, while he instructed Célandine in a certain part that the Abbé and he had agreed she should perform.
CHAPTER XIV
THE DÉBONNAIRE
“It is good to be superior to mortal weakness,” said Malletort to himself as he re-entered his coach and drove from Bartoletti’s door. “In the human subject I cannot but observe how few emotions are conducive to happiness. That which touches the heart seems always prejudicial to the stomach. How ridiculous, how derogatory, and how uncomfortable to turn red and pale, to burst into tears, to spring at people’s throats, nay, even to feel the pulse beat, the head swim, the voice fail at a word, a look, a presence! What, then, constitutes the true well-being of man, the summum bonum, the vantage point, the grand desideratum to which all philosophy is directed? Self-command! But self-command leads to the command of others—to success, to victory, to power! and power, with none to share it, none to benefit by it, is it worth the labour of attainment? Can it be that its eminence is but like the crest of a mountain, from which the more extended the horizon the flatter and the more monotonous appears the view. It may, but what matter? Let me only get to the summit, and I can always come down again at my leisure. Basta! here we are. Now to gain a foothold on the slippery path that leads to the very top!”
The Abbé’s carriage was brought to a halt while he spoke by a post of Grey Musketeers stationed in front of the Palais-Royal. The churchman’s plain and quiet equipage had no right of entrance, and he alighted to pass through the narrow ingress left unguarded for foot-passengers. Hence he crossed a paved court, turned short into a wing of the building with which he seemed well acquainted, and stopped at the foot of a narrow staircase, guarded by one solitary sentry of the corps.
It was our acquaintance, Bras-de-Fer, beguiling the tedium of his watch by a mental review of his own adventures in love and war.
The Abbé knew everybody, and the grim Musketeer saluted his holy friend cordially enough, excusing himself, while he balanced his heavy weapon across his breast, that his orders forbade him to allow any one to pass.
“Lay down your arms, my son,” said the churchman, good-humouredly. “How your wrists must ache by supper-time! I have but three words to say to your captain, and if you will bend your tall head lower by a few inches I can give you the countersign.”
With that he whispered it in his ear, and Bras-de-Fer, again excusing himself, bade him pass on, regaining an attitude of extreme stiffness and martial severity, as if to make amends for past civility somewhat at variance with established discipline.
A green-baize door at the head of the staircase swung open to the Abbé’s push, admitting him to an ante-room, of which Captain George was the only occupant. He, too, seemed weary of his watch, which was tedious from its dull unvarying routine—void of excitement, yet entailing grave and oppressive responsibilities. His greeting to Malletort, however, was more cordial, so thought that keen observer, than is afforded by a man who merely wearies of his own society; and the Abbé was right in his general impression, only wrong in detail.