Falkenstein's governor, some two-score years before, had got in mauvaise odeur in Vienna for some youthful escapade at court; powerful as his princely family was, had been obliged to fly the country; and, coming over here, entered himself at the Bar, and, setting himself to work with characteristic energy, had, wonderful to relate, made a fortune at it. A fine, gallant, courtly ancien noble was the Count, haughty and passionate at times, after the manner of the house; fond of his younger son Waldemar, who at school had tanned boys twice his size; rode his pony in at the finish; smoked, swam, and otherwise conducted himself, till all the rest of the boys worshipped him, though I believe the masters generally attributed to him more diablerie than divinity. But of late, unluckily, his father had been much dominated over by Waldemar's three sisters, ladies of a chill and High Church turn of mind, and by his brother, who in early life had been a prize boy and a sap, and received severe buffetings from his junior at football; and now, being much the more conventional and unimpeachable of the two, took his revenge by carrying many tales to the old Count of his wilder son—tales to which Falkenstein gave strong foundation. For he was restless and reckless, strikingly original, and, above the common herd, too impatient to take any meddling with his affairs, and too proud to explain where he was misjudged; and, though he held a crack government place, good pay, and all but a sinecure, he often spent more than he had, for economy was a dead-letter to him, and if any man asked him a loan, he was too generous to say "No." Life in all its phases he had seen from the time he left school, and you know, mon ami, we cannot see life on a groat—at least, through the bouquet of the wines at Véfours, and the brilliance of the gas-light in Casinos and Redoutes. The fascinations of play were over him—the iron hand of debt pressed upon him; altogether, as he sat through the first hours of the New Year, smoking, and gazing on the flickering fire gleams, there was not much light either in his past or future!
Keenly imaginative and susceptible, blasé and skeptical though he was, the weight of the Old Year and of many gone before it, weighed heavily on his thoughts. Scenes and deeds of his life, that he would willingly have blotted out, rose before him; vague regrets, unformed desires, floated to him on the midnight chimes.
The Old Year was drifting away on the dark clouds floating on to the sea, the New Year was dawning on the vast human life swarming in the costly palaces and crowded dens around him. The past was past, ineffaceable, and relentless; the future lay hid in the unborn days, and Falkenstein, his pipe out, his fire cold and black, took a sedative, and threw himself on his bed, to sleep heavily and restlessly through the struggling morning light of the New Year.
James Cashranger, Esq., of 133, Lowndes Square, was a millionnaire, and the million owed its being to the sale of his entire, which was of high celebrity, being patronised by all the messes and clubs, shipped to all the colonies, blessed by all the H. E. I. C.s, shouted by all the potmen as "Beer-r-r-how," and consumed by all England generally. But Cashranger's soul soared above the snobisms of malt and jack, and à la Jourdain, of bourgeois celebrity, he would have let any Dorante of the beau monde fleece him through thick and thin, and, en effet, gave dinners and drums unnumbered to men and women, who, like Godolphin, went there for the sake of his Lafitte, and quizzed him mercilessly behind his back. The first day Harry dined there with nine other spirits worse than himself—Cashranger having begged him to bring some of his particular chums—he looked at the eleventh seat, and asked, with consummate impudence, who it was for?
"Why, really, my dear Colonel, it is for—for myself," faltered the luckless brewer.
"Oh?—ah?—I see," drawled Harry; "you mistook me; I said I'd dine here—I didn't say I'd dine with you."
That, however, was four or five years before; now, Godolphin having proclaimed his cook and cellar worth countenancing, and his wife, the relict of a lieutenant in the navy, being an admirable adept in the snob's art of "pushing," plenty of exclusive dandies and extensive fine ladies crushed up the stairs on New Year's-night to one of Cashranger's numerous "At homes." Among them, late enough, came Falkenstein. These sort of crushes bored him beyond measure, but he wanted to see Godolphin about some intelligence he had had of an intended illegitimate use of the twitch to Mistletoe, that sweet little chestnut who stood favorite for the Oaks. He soon paid his devoir to madame, who wasn't quite accustomed even yet to all this grandeur after her early struggles on half-pay, and to her eldest daughter, the Bella aforesaid, a showy, flaunting girl with a peony color, and went on through the rooms seeking Harry, stopping, however, for a word to every pretty woman he knew; for though he began to find his game grow stale, he and the beau sexe have a mutual attraction. Little those women guessed, as they smiled in his handsome eyes, and laughed at his witty talk, and blushed at his soft voice, how heartily sick he was of their frivolities, and how often disappointment and sarcasm lurked in his mocking words. To be blasé was no affectation with Falkenstein; it was a very earnest reality, as with most of us who have knocked about in the world, not only from the variety of his manifold experiences, but from the trickery, and censure, and cold water with which the world had treated him.
"You here, old fellow?" said Bevan of the Blues, meeting him in the music-room, where some artistes were singing Traviata airs. "You don't care for this row, do you? Come along with me, and I'll show you something that will amuse you better."
"Show me Godolphin, and I'll thank you. I didn't come to stay—did you?"
"No. Horrid bore, ain't it? But since you are here, you may as well take a look at the dearest little actress I ever saw since I was a boy, and bewitched by Léontine Fay. Sit down." Bevan went on, as they entered a room fitted up like a theatre, "There, it's that one with blue eyes, got up like a Watteau's huntress; isn't she a brilliant little thing?"