“Nor am I,” replied the young man, promptly cocking his pistol; he aimed at the hole made by the Comte’s bullet, and sent his own close to it.
“That is what I call a well-educated man,” cried the admiral with enthusiasm.
During this ride with the youth, whom he already regarded as his nephew, he found endless opportunities of catechizing him on all the trifles of which a perfect knowledge constituted, according to his private code, an accomplished gentleman.
“Have you any debts?” he at last asked of his companion, after many other inquiries.
“No, monsieur.”
“What, you pay for all you have?”
“Punctually; otherwise we should lose our credit, and every sort of respect.”
“But at least you have more than one mistress? Ah, you blush, comrade! Well, manners have changed. All these notions of lawful order, Kantism, and liberty have spoilt the young men. You have no Guimard now, no Duthe, no creditors—and you know nothing of heraldry; why, my dear young friend, you are not fully fledged. The man who does not sow his wild oats in the spring sows them in the winter. If I have but eighty thousand francs a year at the age of seventy, it is because I ran through the capital at thirty. Oh! with my wife—in decency and honor. However, your imperfections will not interfere with my introducing you at the Pavillon Planat. Remember, you have promised to come, and I shall expect you.”
“What an odd little old man!” said Longueville to himself. “He is so jolly and hale; but though he wishes to seem a good fellow, I will not trust him too far.”
Next day, at about four o’clock, when the house party were dispersed in the drawing-rooms and billiard-room, a servant announced to the inhabitants of the Villa Planat, “Monsieur DE Longueville.” On hearing the name of the old admiral’s protege, every one, down to the player who was about to miss his stroke, rushed in, as much to study Mademoiselle de Fontaine’s countenance as to judge of this phoenix of men, who had earned honorable mention to the detriment of so many rivals. A simple but elegant style of dress, an air of perfect ease, polite manners, a pleasant voice with a ring in it which found a response in the hearer’s heart-strings, won the good-will of the family for Monsieur Longueville. He did not seem unaccustomed to the luxury of the Receiver-General’s ostentatious mansion. Though his conversation was that of a man of the world, it was easy to discern that he had had a brilliant education, and that his knowledge was as thorough as it was extensive. He knew so well the right thing to say in a discussion on naval architecture, trivial, it is true, started by the old admiral, that one of the ladies remarked that he must have passed through the Ecole Polytechnique.