So henceforward, reader, you will not be troubled by your obedient servant with the loves of a prosperous merchant of wines. Had those loves been more successful, and the wines less so, you would never have heard of either.
Whether or not I should have been a happier man in the long‑run I really can't say—mine has been, on the whole, a very happy life, as men's lives go; but I am bound to admit, in all due modesty, that the universe would probably have been the poorer by some very splendid people, and perhaps by some very splendid things it could ill have spared; and one great and beautifully borne sorrow the less would have been ushered into this world of many sorrows.
It was a bright May morning (a year after this) when Barty and his aunt Caroline and his cousin Daphne and their servants left Antwerp for Düsseldorf on the Rhine.
At Malines they had to change trains, and spent half an hour at the station waiting for the express from Brussels and bidding farewell to their Mechlin friends, who had come there to wish them God‑speed: the Abbé Lefebvre, Father Louis, and others; and the Torfses, père et mère; and little Frau, who wept freely as Lady Caroline kissed her and gave her a pretty little diamond brooch. Barty gave her a gold cross and a hearty shake of the hand, and she seemed quite heart‑broken.
Then up came the long, full train, and their luggage was swallowed, and they got in, and the two guards blew their horns, and they left Malines behind them—with a mixed feeling of elation and regret.
They had not been very happy there, but many people had been very kind; and the place, with all its dreariness, had a strange, still charm, and was full of historic beauty and romantic associations.
Passing Louvain, Barty shook his fist at the Catholic University and its scientific priestly professors, who condemned one so lightly to a living death. He hated the aspect of the place, the very smell of it.
At Verviers they left the Belgian train; they had reached the limits of King Leopold's dominions. There was half an hour for lunch in the big refreshment‑room, over which his Majesty and the Queen of the Belgians presided from the wall—nearly seven feet high each of them, and in their regal robes.
Just as the Rohans ordered their repast another English party came to their table and ordered theirs—a distinguished old gentleman of naval bearing and aspect; a still young middle‑aged lady, very handsome, with blue spectacles; and an immensely tall, fair girl, very fully developed, and so astonishingly beautiful that it almost took one's breath away merely to catch sight of her; and people were distracted from ordering their mid‑day meal merely to stare at this magnificent goddess, who was evidently born to be a mother of heroes.