CHAPTER VII
The following Monday I prepared to attend Mr Courtney. On arriving at his house, and announcing my name, a servant conducted me into his master's dressing-room. I appeared before him with trembling steps, downcast eyes, and an averted face.
'Look up, child!' said my father, in an imperious tone. 'If you are conscious of no crime, why all this ridiculous confusion?'
I struggled with my feelings: the tone and manner in which I was addressed gave me an indignant sensation:—a deeper suffusion than that of modesty, the glow of wounded pride, burnt in my cheeks:—I turned quick, gazed in the face of Mr Courtney with a steady eye, and spoke a few words, in a firm voice, importing—that I attended by his desire, and waited his direction.
He regarded me with somewhat less hauteur, and, while he finished dressing, interrogated me respecting the books I had read, and the impression they had left on my mind. I replied with simplicity, and without evasion. He soon discovered that my imagination had been left to wander unrestrained in the fairy fields of fiction; but that, of historical facts, and the science of the world, I was entirely ignorant.
'It is as I apprehended,' said he:—'your fancy requires a rein rather than a spur. Your studies, for the future, must be of a soberer nature, or I shall have you mistake my valet for a prince in disguise, my house for a haunted castle, and my rational care for your future welfare for barbarous tyranny.'
I felt a poignant and suffocating sensation, too complicated to bear analyzing, and followed Mr Courtney in silence to the library. My heart bounded when, on entering a spacious room, I perceived on either side a large and elegant assortment of books, regularly arranged in glass cases, and I longed to be left alone, to expatiate freely in these treasures of entertainment. But I soon discovered, to my inexpressible mortification, that the cases were locked, and that in this intellectual feast I was not to be my own purveyor. My father, after putting into my hands the lives of Plutarch, left me to my meditations; informing me, that he should probably dine at home with a few friends, at five o'clock, when he should expect my attendance at the table.
I opened my book languidly, after having examined through the glass doors the titles of those which were with-held from me. I felt a kind of disgust to what I considered as a task imposed, and read a few pages carelessly, gazing at intervals through the windows into the square.—But my attention, as I proceeded, was soon forcibly arrested, my curiosity excited, and my enthusiasm awakened. The hours passed rapidly—I perceived not their flight—and at five o'clock, when summoned to dinner, I went down into the dining-room, my mind pervaded with republican ardour, my sentiments elevated by a high-toned philosophy, and my bosom glowing with the virtues of patriotism.
I found with Mr Courtney company of both sexes, to whom he presented me on my entrance. Their easy compliments disconcerted me, and I shrunk, abashed, from the bold and curious eyes of the gentlemen. During the repast I ate little, but listened in silence to every thing that passed.
The theatres were the first topic of conversation, Venice Preserved had been acted the preceding evening, and from discussing the play, the conversation took a political turn. A gentleman that happened to be seated next me, who spoke fluently, looking around him every moment for approbation, with apparent self-applause, gave the discourse a tone of gallantry, declaring—'Pierre to be a noble fellow, and that the loss of a mistress was a sufficient excuse for treason and conspiracy, even though the country had been deluged in blood and involved in conflagration.'