“I have been compelled to be cruel to-night to a woman, M. Montaiglon,” said he, “and that is not my nature. And—to come to another consideration that weighed as much with me as any—this unpleasant duty of mine that still sticks in my throat like funeral-cake was partly forced by consideration for another lady—the sweetest and the best—who would be the last I should care to have hear any ill of me, even in a libel.”
A protest rose to Montaiglon's throat; a fury stirred him at the gaucherie that should bring Olivia's name upon the top of such a subject. He could not trust himself to speak with calmness, and it was to his great relief the Chamberlain changed the topic—broadened it, at least, and spoke of women in the general, almost cheerfully, as if he delighted to put an unpleasant topic behind him. It was done so adroitly, too, that Count Victor was compelled to believe it prompted by a courteous desire on the part of the Chamberlain not too vividly to illuminate his happiness in the affection of Olivia.
“I'm an older man than you, M. Montaiglon,” said the Chamberlain, “and I may be allowed to give some of my own conclusions upon the fair. I have known good, ill, and merely middling among them, the cunning and the simple, the learned and the utterly ignorant, and by the Holy Iron! honesty and faith are the best virtues in the lot of them. They all like flattery, I know—”
“A dead man and a stupid woman are the only ones who do not. Jamais beau parler riecorcha le langue!” said Montaiglon.
“Faith, and that's very true,” consented the Chamberlain, laughing softly. “I take it not amiss myself if it's proffered in the right way—which is to say, for the qualities I know I have, and not for the imaginary ones. As I was saying, give me the simple heart and honesty; they're not very rife in our own sex, and—”
“Even there, monsieur, I can be generous enough,” said Montaiglon. “I can always retain my regard for human nature, because I have learned never to expect too much from it.”
“Well said!” cried the Chamberlain. “Do you know that in your manner of rejoinder you recall one Dumont I met once at the Jesuits' College when I was in France years ago?”
“Ah, you have passed some time in my country, then?” said the Count with awakened interest, a little glad of a topic scarce so abstruse as sex.
“I have been in every part of Europe,” said the Chamberlain; “and it must have been by the oddest of mischances I have not been at Cammercy itself, for well I knew your uncle's friends, though, as it happened, we were of a different complexion of politics. I lived for months one time in the Hôtel de Transylvania, Rue Condé, and kept my carosse de remise, and gambled like every other ass of my kind in Paris till I had not a louis to my credit. Lord! the old days, the old days! I should be penitent, I daresay, M. Montaiglon, but I'm putting that off till I find that a sober life has compensations for the entertainment of a life of liberty.”
“Did you know Balhaldie?”