I assured him that what the three diplomats had just accomplished was of greater interest to me than any of my own affairs could possibly be. In all my story I had touched as lightly as I could on the Comtesse de Baloit, hoping that my uncle would not discover that I had any special interest in that direction; but he was too astute a reader of human nature to be easily misled.
"That is all very well," he said, in reply to my assurance of a deeper interest in affairs of state than in my own; "I do not doubt for a moment that you believe what you say, and I could easily believe it, too, if it were not for the Comtesse de Baloit. Such affairs are more engrossing than all others in the world, if I remember my own youthful days aright. But I had no idea the wind sat in that quarter, as your Mr. Shakspere would say. Have you any idea how high you are aspiring? I know you Americans stop at nothing; but, my dear boy, you might as well aspire to the hand of the Princess Charlotte of England!"
"I am aspiring to the hand of no one, sir," I answered rather hotly, for I knew so well how hopeless any dreams of mine might be that I liked not to have any one think I was cherishing false hopes. "Whatever my feeling toward the Comtesse may be, I have never had the slightest hope. If Citizeness Capet, as the First Consul calls her, does not succeed in marrying the comtesse to the Chevalier Le Moyne, then her cousins the Comte d'Arbois and the Duc d'Enghien will probably marry her into one of the reigning houses of Europe. Mademoiselle la Comtesse has shown me some kindness, but only such as any right-feeling young maiden would show to one who has been able to do her some little service, and I am not one to presume upon her grateful feeling."
My uncle looked at me for a moment with a little frown between his brows, as if he were trying to solve some perplexing question, and then the frown cleared away and he spoke smilingly:
"Well, well, we will dismiss the Comtesse; that is too difficult a problem. And now for what is, after all, a question of more practical importance. Do you want to accept this offer of the First Consul's?"
"Very much, sir," I answered eagerly.
"I doubt whether I have any right to give you permission to do so," responded my uncle; "but this much authority I will assume. If the First Consul is willing to take you subject to the commands of your father when we can hear from him, I will give my permission, and I will write to your father by the first packet. It will be ten or twelve weeks before we can possibly hear from him, and it may be much longer. But I am rather relieved that you desire to accept the First Consul's offer. He does not like his favors rejected, and he is quite capable of holding me responsible for having influenced you, should you decline."
The First Consul was willing to take me on those conditions (I think he felt no doubt of my father's answer; such confidence had he in the magnetism of his own name that he believed any man would feel proud to have his son serve under him), and a very few days saw me arrayed in my glittering uniform and spending every spare moment, when I was off duty, riding up and down the Champs-Élysées in the hope not so much of seeing the Comtesse de Baloit as of being seen by her. For I felt that half the joy I had in my gorgeous trappings would be gone if she could not see them and admire them too.
And as my sword clanked and my spurs jingled while Fatima pranced and curveted under me in the bright spring weather, my heart sang an accompaniment to them.
Could it be possible that the great Bonaparte might turn the rest of his speech from jest to earnest? Would he, perhaps, now that he had made me his aide, trust her to me as willingly as to the chevalier?