“Trouble not yourself about returning it. I think I shall not have use for money much longer. I am 61 often ill—more ill than any one supposes—and when I leave the theater I am more dead than alive. So give me in return but an occasional thought—a word of remembrance—it will be enough.”
Count Saxe said something—I know not what; the beauty, the touching sweetness, the majesty of this woman’s love was enough to overcome any man. He kissed her hand and her cheek in farewell; she gave me, as always, some kind words, and we left her, bowing to her with the reverence due a queen.
Count Saxe said not one word to me on our way to the Luxembourg. I believe he shed some tears as he sat back in the corner of the coach.
CHAPTER VI
ON THE BALCONY
The hour of action was at hand, however. The next day came the storm and stress of preparation. Count Saxe was besieged with persons wishing to go to Courland with him, chiefly gentlemen out at elbows who had nothing to lose; men of a doubtful past, men who had failed at everything else and thought themselves fitted to conquer a kingdom. Out of these and others Count Saxe selected three hundred men, whom he armed and equipped as Uhlans, and who were added to the body-guard I had under me before. There were other troops promised, and these Uhlans were meant to be the human rampart between Count Saxe and harm.
Monsieur Voltaire had gone to England, his departure hastened, so Count Saxe declared, laughing uproariously, by his dread of encountering Babache, the rival wit.
I found time, in the midst of running about from one end of Paris to the other, to call daily at Gaston Cheverny’s lodgings and ask after the young man. His improvement continued rapidly and steadily. I did not once see the young girl, Mademoiselle Capello, who had brought about all this fine coil, but she was not out of my mind for a moment. I may be, as I am, the 63 ugliest man on earth, without riches and not wanting them, humbly born and not disguising it, but yet I can have my dreams as well as any man. I often passed the great Hôtel Kirkpatrick in those days, and longed to know how Mademoiselle Capello fared, and whether her escapade had come to Madame Riano’s ears or not. Several times I caught sight of old Peter, who seemed to be majordomo of the establishment. The man’s face always arrested my attention. He was an ordinary looking elderly man, still retaining something of his soldier’s life about him, but the look in his eyes always went to the heart like a poniard. Afterward I heard why this was so. I saw Madame Riano often enough driving in or out of her courtyard in her great purple and gold coach, with her purple and canary postilions and four cream-colored horses. When she went to court she had six horses.