“It will never do, my dear,” said Mrs. Percy, looking up at her; “trust me it will never do; turn him which way you will in your imagination, you will never make a hero of him—nor yet a brother-in-law.”
“My dear mother, how could you guess what I was thinking of?” said Rosamond, colouring a little, and laughing; “but I assure you—now let me explain to you, ma’am, in one word, what I think of M. de Tourville.”
“Hush! my dear, he is here.”
The gentlemen came into the room to tea.—M. de Tourville walked to the table at which Mrs. Percy was sitting; and, after various compliments on the beauty of the views from the windows, on the richness of the foliage in the park, and the superiority of English verdure, he next turned to look at the pictures in the saloon, distinguished a portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds, then passing to a table on which lay several books—“Is it permitted?” said he, taking up one of them—the Life of Lord Nelson.
M. de Tourville did not miss the opportunity of paying a just and what to English ears he knew must be a delightful, tribute of praise to our naval hero. Then opening several other books, he made a rash attempt to pronounce in English their titles, and with the happy facility of a Frenchman, he touched upon various subjects, dwelt upon none, but found means on all to say something to raise himself and his country in the opinion of the company, and at the same time to make all his auditors pleased with themselves. Presently, taking a seat between Rosamond and Caroline, he applied himself to draw out their talents for conversation. Nor did he labour in vain. They did not shut themselves up in stupid and provoking silence, nor did they make any ostentatious display of their knowledge or abilities.—M. de Tourville, as Rosamond had justly observed, seemed to be particularly struck with Miss Caroline Percy.—She was beautiful, and of an uncommon style of beauty. Ingenuous, unaffected, and with all the simplicity of youth, there was a certain dignity and graceful self-possession in her manner, which gave the idea of a superior character. She had, perhaps, less of what the French call esprit than M. de Tourville had been accustomed to meet with in young persons on the continent, but he was the more surprised by the strength and justness of thought which appeared in her plain replies to the finesse of some of his questions.
The morning of the second day that he was at Percy-hall, M. de Tourville was admiring the Miss Percys’ drawings, especially some miniatures of Caroline’s, and he produced his snuff-box, to show Mr. Percy a beautiful miniature on its lid.
It was exquisitely painted. M. de Tourville offered it to Caroline to copy, and Mrs. Percy urged her to make the attempt.
“It is the celebrated Euphrosyne,” said he, “who from the stage was very near mounting a throne.”
M. de Tourville left the miniature in the hands of the ladies to be admired, and, addressing himself to Mr. Percy, began to tell with much mystery the story of Euphrosyne. She was an actress of whom the prince, heir apparent at the German court where he resided, had become violently enamoured. One of the prince’s young confidants had assisted his royal highness in carrying on a secret correspondence with Euphrosyne, which she managed so artfully that the prince was on the point of giving her a written promise of marriage, when the intrigue was discovered, and prevented from proceeding farther, by a certain Count Albert Altenberg, a young nobleman who had till that moment been one of the prince’s favourites, but who by thus opposing his passion lost entirely his prince’s favour. The story was a common story of an intrigue, such as happens every day in every country where there is a young prince; but there was something uncommon in the conduct of Count Altenberg. Mr. Percy expressed his admiration of it; but M. de Tourville, though he acknowledged, as in morality bound, that the count’s conduct had been admirable, just what it ought to be upon this occasion, yet spoke of him altogether as une tête exaltée, a young man of a romantic Quixotic enthusiasm, to which he had sacrificed the interests of his family, and his own hopes of advancement at court. In support of this opinion, M. de Tourville related several anecdotes, and on each of these anecdotes Mr. Percy and M. de Tourville differed in opinion. All that was produced to prove that the young count had no judgment or discretion appeared to Mr. Percy proofs of his independence of character and greatness of soul. Mr. Percy repeated the anecdotes to Mrs. Percy and his daughters; and M. de Tourville, as soon as he saw that the ladies, and especially Caroline, differed from him, immediately endeavoured to slide round to their opinion, and assured Caroline, with many asseverations, and with his hand upon his heart, that he had merely been speaking of the light in which these things appeared to the generality of men of the world; that for his own particular feelings they were all in favour of the frankness and generosity of character evinced by these imprudences—he only lamented that certain qualities should expose their possessor to the censure and ridicule of those who were like half the world, incapable of being moved by any motive but interest, and unable to reach to the idea of the moral sublime.
The more M. de Tourville said upon the subject, and the more gesture and emphasis he used to impress the belief in his truth, the less Caroline believed him, and the more dislike and contempt she felt for the duplicity and pitiful meanness of a character, which was always endeavouring to seem, instead of to be.—He understood and felt the expression of her countenance, and mortified by that dignified silence, which said more than words could express, he turned away, and never afterwards addressed to her any of his confidential conversation.