Anthony straightened himself with a long sigh, and, putting aside the curtain, looked out across the mansardes, wet and gleaming under a thin rain. His hand trembled a little on the heavy velvet, and he frowned at it, and, going across to the table, poured himself out a swallow of brandy.
With the glass at his lips he paused, his eyes upon the chair where Bibi-la-Raie had sat and wherein he himself had passed five hours. Then, very ceremoniously, he bowed and dipped his glass toward an imaginary occupant.
"Merci, monsieur!" he said.
The Only Son of His Mother
IN the limited understanding of Pépin dwelt one great Fact, in the shadow of which all else shrank to insignificance, and that Fact was the existence of Comte Victor de Villersexel, the extremely tall and extraordinarily imposing person who was, first of all, Officier de la Légion d'Honneur, second, Membre de l'Académie Française, and, lastly, father to Pépin himself. It must be acknowledged that to the more observing of his limited kinsfolk and extensive acquaintance the clay feet of Pépin's idol were distinctly in evidence. How he had contrived to attain to the proud eminence which he occupied was, in the earlier days of his publicity, a matter of curious conjecture and not over-plausible explanation. Certainly no inherent merit or ability it was which formed the first step of the stairway he had climbed. In diplomacy the Comte de Villersexel had never bettered his first appointment as second secretary of legation at Belgrade; in literature his achievements were limited to one ponderous work on feudalism, remarkable chiefly for its surpassing futility; and in society his sole claim to consideration lay in his marriage to a Brazilian heiress, who had died within the year, leaving her husband an income of two hundred thousand francs—and Pépin. In all this it was difficult to find a sufficient reason for the crimson button and the green embroidered coat, unless it was that the family of de Villersexel went back to the Crusades. That is not always a prudent thing for a family to do, but the present instance was an exception.
Born to the heritage of a name which his predecessors had made notable, Comte Victor was one of those whose greatness is thrust upon them rather than achieved, one of the bubbles in the ferment of Paris which their very levity brings to the top, to show rainbow tints in the sunlight of publicity. It is probable that no one was more surprised than de Villersexel himself at the honors which fell to his share, but one thing even the most contemptuous had, perforce, to concede. Once secure of his laurels, he wore them with a confidence that was akin to conviction. His reserve was iron-clad, his dignity stupendous. It required considerable time for new acquaintances to probe the secret of his insufficiency. Victor de Villersexel was, as the irreverent young military attaché at the American Embassy once said of him, "a dazzling imitation of the real thing."
But to Pépin the idol was an idol without flaw. Through what shrewd appreciation of occasional words and chance comments he had contrived to grasp the significance of that speck of scarlet upon the Count's lapel and that apparently simple phrase, "de l'Académie Française," which, in formal introductions, was wont to follow his father's name, must be numbered among childhood's mysteries. But before he was seven, Pépin had solved these problems for himself, and the results of his reasoning were awestruck admiration and blind allegiance to the will of this wonderful creature who never smiled. His own small individuality was so completely overshadowed by that of his father that in the latter's presence the child was scarcely noticeable, dressed in his sober blouses, and creeping about the stately rooms of the great apartment in the avenue d'Iéna with an absolutely noiseless step. He was all brown, was Pépin: brown bare legs, and brown hands, very small and slender, brown hair, cropped short and primly parted, and deep brown eyes, eloquent of unspoken and unspeakable things. He was earnest, his tutor said, earnest and willing, but not bright, poor Pépin! He spoke English, to be sure, with a curious accent caught from his Cornish nurse, but that was due not so much to ability as to enforced association. In his French grammar and such simple arithmetic as was required of him he was slow and often stupid. But he was rarely scolded, and never punished. Once, indeed, the Comte had been about to strike him for some trifling fault, but somehow the blow, for which Pépin stood waiting, never fell.
"He is like his mother," the légionnaire had muttered, as he turned away, "an imbecile—but"—