"Ah, madame!" exclaimed De Mesmai, whom experience among his countrywomen had taught that the dose of flattery could never be too strong for them, "how much we are indebted to you! Such brilliancy of instrumental execution, and such a voice! My friend, Major Stuart, will allow—or rather will be compelled to admit—that you far excel any other singer he has ever heard in Paris, Lisbon, or Madrid?"
Although this was not strictly true, Ronald of course replied in the affirmative. There is no flattery which can be too pointed for a Parisienne, who can hear, as mere matters of course, such observations as would bring the red blood rushing into the fair face of an English lady.
De Mesmai engrossed to himself nearly the whole conversation of the baroness, and they chatted away, with amazing volubility and merriment, on such light matters as the marriages, intrigues, and flirtations of one half of Paris,—the fashionable part at least,—while the petulant baron, after various ineffectual attempts to interrupt their interesting tête-à-tête, abandoned the idea of doing so; and, while reconnoitring their position with watchful eyes, and listening with open ears, he gave Stuart a very long and very tiresome account of the learned society, to the affairs of which, since the peace of 1814, he had devoted his whole attention.
De Mesmai and the lady, or, to speak more correctly, the lady and De Mesmai, were seated on an opposite sofa, and so close, that their dark hair almost mingled together,—this, too, before the eyes of the baron. They conversed in a low tone, which every instant swelled out into a laugh; and such glances of deep and hidden meaning were exchanged, that, had they been observed, they would have entirely discomposed old Clappourknuis's antiquarian discussions about ruins, medals, coins, MSS., &c. &c. Stuart thought his friend a very odd fellow, and certainly the free manners of the baroness did not heighten his opinion of Parisian wives.
Dinner was served up in excellent style, but what it consisted of has nothing to do with this history. There were enough and to spare of wonderful French dishes, which the Highlander had never seen before, and probably has never heard of since. Stuart having led the baroness to the dining-room, De Mesmai led her back again to the library, falling into the rear of the baron, who was borne thither in his arm-chair by six stout valets, with his gouty leg projecting like a bowsprit. In this trim, as host, he led the way from the table. Coffee and wine were awaiting them in the library, which was lighted up by wax candles placed in antique candelabras. The crimson curtains were drawn, and a cheerful fire blazed on the hearth and roared up the wide chimney. The old gilt volumes on the shelves, the steel arms and armour, the splendid picture-frames, the wine-decanters, the silver coffee equipage, and every thing else of metal or crystal, glittered in the ruddy light, and the baron's library appeared the most snug place imaginable.
Stuart, who had been accustomed to sit long at the mess-table,—rather a failing; with the valiant ninety-twa,—was unable to adopt the foreign custom of taking coffee immediately after dinner. He therefore joined the baron in paying attention to a decanter of light French wine; but De Mesmai sipped the simple beverage, seated by Madame at a side-table where the coffee was served up, and his attentions became so very particular and decided, that in any house in Britain they must have ensured his exit by the window instead of the door. But the baron, although a very jealous husband, was a Frenchman, and consequently did not perceive any thing very heinous in the attention paid to his wife by the gay guardsman; yet he would rather have seen him lying at full length in the morgue, than seated at the little side-table with the baroness.
But Monsieur le Baron having dined to his entire satisfaction, was rather inclined to be in a good humour, and, after a time, he was obliging enough to place the high stuffed back of his easy chair between himself and the tête-à-tête which his gay lady enjoyed with her still gayer cavalier.
Finding that Stuart was conversant with Père d'Orleans; the Histoire des Croisades of Pierre de Maimbourg, and other old authors,—thanks to the tawse of his dominie, the old minister of Lochisla,—the baron resolved to make a victim of him for the remainder of the evening, and bored him most unmercifully with long antiquarian and archaeological disquisitions, which were varied only by still more tedious accounts of his campaigns under Napoleon.
He spent an hour in detailing enthusiastically the services and deeds of the Scots Guards[*] in France, from the time that Alexander III. sent them to Saint Lewis for service in the Holy Land down to the battle of Pavia, where the Scottish corps threw themselves into a circle around Francis I., and he was not captured by the enemy till only four of that brave band were left alive.
[*] Now the 1st regiment of the line, or Royal Scots, the oldest corps in Europe.