“Will you put on a dress a la Grecque this evening, and come to the Opera?”
The shudder with which the Countess received the suggestion was a mute reply.
Early in December 1833, a man, whose perfectly white hair and worn features seemed to show that he was aged by grief rather than by years, was walking at midnight along the Rue Gaillon. Having reached a house of modest appearance, and only two stories high, he paused to look up at one of the attic windows that pierced the roof at regular intervals. A dim light scarcely showed through the humble panes, some of which had been repaired with paper. The man below was watching the wavering glimmer with the vague curiosity of a Paris idler, when a young man came out of the house. As the light of the street lamp fell full on the face of the first comer, it will not seem surprising that, in spite of the darkness, this young man went towards the passer-by, though with the hesitancy that is usual when we have any fear of making a mistake in recognizing an acquaintance.
“What, is it you,” cried he, “Monsieur le President? Alone at this hour, and so far from the Rue Saint-Lazare. Allow me to have the honor of giving you my arm.—The pavement is so greasy this morning, that if we do not hold each other up,” he added, to soothe the elder man’s susceptibilities, “we shall find it hard to escape a tumble.”
“But, my dear sir, I am no more than fifty-five, unfortunately for me,” replied the Comte de Granville. “A physician of your celebrity must know that at that age a man is still hale and strong.”
“Then you are in waiting on a lady, I suppose,” replied Horace Bianchon. “You are not, I imagine, in the habit of going about Paris on foot. When a man keeps such fine horses——”
“Still, when I am not visiting in the evening, I commonly return from the Courts or the club on foot,” replied the Count.
“And with large sums of money about you, perhaps!” cried the doctor. “It is a positive invitation to the assassin’s knife.”
“I am not afraid of that,” said Granville, with melancholy indifference.
“But, at least, do not stand about,” said the doctor, leading the Count towards the boulevard. “A little more and I shall believe that you are bent of robbing me of your last illness, and dying by some other hand than mine.”