It was the middle of October; the reflux of the winter season was beginning to fill Paris, and thither Mohun and Livingstone had returned from their German tour, the latter decidedly the worse for his wanderings. He had not suffered much physically, for the hard living that would have utterly broken up some constitutions had only been able to make his face thinner, to deepen the bistre tints under the eyes, and to give a more angular gauntness to his massive frame.
But morally he was not the same man. Play, which had formerly been only an occasional excitement, had now become a necessary part of his daily existence. Mohun would never say—perhaps he did not know—how much Guy had lost during those few months. In spite of several gigantic coups (he broke the bank both at Baden and Hombourg), the balance was fearfully on the wrong side, so much so that it entailed a heavy mortgage—the maiden one in his time—on the fair lands of Kerton Manor.
I wonder people have not got tired of quoting "Heureux en jeu; malheureux en amour." It seems one of the least true of all stale, stupid proverbs. Luck will run itself out in more ways than one; and sometimes you will never hold a trump, however often the suit changes. The ancients knew better than we when they called the double-sixes "Venus's cast." The monotony of Guy's reckless dissipations was soon broken up by an event which ought to have sobered him.
He had been dining with Mohun at the Trois Frères, and they were returning late toward the Boulevards, when their attention was attracted by a group in one of the narrow streets leading out of the Rue Vivienne. Five or six raffish-looking men had surrounded a fair, delicate girl, and were preparing to besiege her in form, deriving apparently intense amusement from the piteous entreaties of their victim to be released. Not the roués of the Regency after the suppers that have become a by-word—not the mousquetaires after the wildest of their orgies—were ever so unrelenting in brutality toward women quite lonely and undefended as those unshorn ornaments of Young France, when replete with a dinner at forty sous, and with the anomalous liquor that Macon blushes to own.
In all Europe there is no more genial companion and gallant gentleman than the aristocrat of France pur sang—in all the world no more terrible adversary than her wiry, well-trained soldier; but, from the prolific decay of old institutions and prejudices, a mushroom growth has sprouted of child-atheists and precocious profligates, calculating debauchees while their cheeks are still innocent of down, who, after the effervescence of a foul, vicious youth has spent itself, simmer down into avaricious, dishonest bourgeois and bloated café politicians. The teeth of the Republican dragon have been drawn, but they are sown broadcast from Dan even to Beersheba. Ancient realm of Capet, Valois, and Bourbon—motherland of Du Guesclin and Bayard—you may well be proud of your Cadmean offspring!
Guy was passing the scene with a careless side-glance when the accent of the suppliant caught his ear—not French, though she spoke the language perfectly.
"By G—d," he said, dropping Mohun's arm, "I believe it's an Englishwoman they are bullying;" and three of his long strides took him into the midst of the group.
Two of the aggressors reeled back, right and left, from the shock of his mighty shoulders; and griping another, the tallest, by the collar, he whirled him some paces off on his back in the streaming kennel, as one might do with a very weak, light little child. "Au large, canaille!" he said, as he advanced on the two who still kept their feet. These drew back from his path without a second warning. One indeed, eminent in the savate, made a demonstration for an instant; but his comrade, who had just gathered himself up, caught his arm, muttering "Ne t'y frotte pas, Alphonse. C'est trop dur." None of them fancied an encounter with the grim giant who confronted them, his muscles braced and salient, his eyes gleaming with the gaudia certaminis, and his nostrils dilated as if they snuffed the battle.
So they made way for Guy and his charge to pass, only grinding out between their teeth the strange guttural blasphemies that characterize impotent Gallic wrath.
Mohun, a reserve scarcely leas formidable, stood by all the while, looking on lazily; he saw that his companion was more than equal to the emergency.