Not being in a condition to decide this point, I was silent, and he went on, growing more impressive at each phrase:
"She is splendid, really! And I'm a very difficile fellow, you know; but such hair, such eyes, one doesn't see every day in those sun-dried Mitchells or those little pink Bovilliers. Well, yesterday, after that confounded luncheon (how I hate all those complimentary affairs!—one can't enjoy the truffles for talking to the ladies, nor enjoy the ladies for discussing the truffles), I went for a ride with Conran out to Villa Neponte. I left him there, and went down to see the overland steamers come in. While I was waiting, I got into talk, somehow or other, with a very agreeable, gentleman-like fellow, who asked me if I'd only just come to Malta, and all that sort of thing—you know the introductory style of action—till we got quite good friends, and he told me he was living outside this wretched little hole at the Casa di Fiori, and said—wasn't it civil of him?—said he should be very happy to see me if I'd call any time. He gave me his card—Lord Adolphus Fitzhervey—and a man with him called him 'Dolph.' As good luck had it, my weed went out just while we were talking, and Fitzhervey was monstrously pleasant, searched all over him for a fusee, couldn't find one, and asked me to go up with him to the Casa di Fiori and get a light. Of course I did, and he and I and Guatamara had some sherbet and a smoke together, and then he introduced me to the Marchioness St. Julian, his sister—by Jove! such a magnificent woman, Simon, you never saw one like her, I'll wager. She was uncommonly agreeable, too, and such a smile, my boy! She seemed to like me wonderfully—not rare that, though, you'll say—and asked me to go and take coffee there to-night after mess, and bring one of my chums with me; and as I like to show you life, young one, and your taste wants improving after Aunt Minerva, you may come, if you like. Hallo! there's Conran. I say, don't tell him. I don't want any poaching on my manor."
Conran came in at that minute; he was then a Brevet-Major and Captain in Ours, and one of the older men who spoilt Little Grand in one way, as much as the women did in another. He was a fine, powerful fellow, with eyes like an eagle's, and pluck like a lion's; he had a grave look, and had been of late more silent and self-reticent than the other roistering, débonnair, light-hearted "Dare Devils;" but though, perhaps, tired of the wild escapades which reputation had once attributed to him, was always the most lenient to the boy's monkey tricks, and always the one to whom he went if his larks had cost him too dear, or if he was in a scrape from which he saw no exit. Conran had recently come in for a good deal of money, and there were few bright eyes in Malta that would not have smiled kindly on him; but he did not care much for any of them. There was some talk of a love-affair before he went to India, that was the cause of his hard-heartedness, though I must say he did not look much like a victim to the grande passion, in my ideas, which were drawn from valentines and odes in the "Woman, thou fond and fair deceiver" style; in love that turned its collars down and let its hair go uncut and refused to eat, and recovered with a rapidity proportionate to its ostentation; and I did not know that, if a man has lost his treasure, he may mourn it so deeply that he may refuse to run about like Harpagon, crying for his cassette to an audience that only laughs at his miseries.
"Well, young ones," said Conran, as he came in and threw down his cap and whip, "here you are, spending your hours in pipes and bad wine. What a blessing it is to have a palate that isn't blasé, and that will swallow all wine just because it is wine! That South African goes down with better relish, Little Grand, than you'll find in Château Margaux ten years hence. As soon as one begins to want touching up with olives, one's real gusto is gone."
"Hang olives, sir! they're beastly," said Little Grand; "and I don't care who pretends they're not. Olives are like sermons and wives, everybody makes a wry face, and would rather be excused 'em, Major; but it's the custom to call 'em good things, and so men bolt 'em in complaisance, and while they hate the salt-water flavor, descant on the delicious rose taste!"
"Quite true, Little Grand! but one takes olives to enhance the wine; and so, perhaps, other men's sermons make one enjoy one's racier novel, and other men's wives make one appreciate one's liberty still better. Don't abuse olives; you'll want them figuratively and literally before you've done either drinking or living!"
"Oh! confound it, Major," cried Little Grand, "I do hope and trust a spent ball may have the kindness to double me up and finish me off before then."
"You're not philosophic, my boy."
"Thank Heaven, no!" ejaculated Little Grand, piously. "I've an uncle, a very great philosopher, beats all the sages hollow, from Bion to Buckle, and writes in the Metaphysical Quarterly, but I'll be shot if he don't spend so much time in trying to puzzle out what life is, that all his has slipped away without his having lived one bit. When I was staying with him one Christmas, he began boring me with a frightful theory on the non-existence of matter. I couldn't stand that, so I cut him short, and set him down to the luncheon-table; and while he was full swing with a Strasbourg pâté and Comet hock, I stopped him and asked him if, with them in his mouth, he believed in matter or not? He was shut up, of course; bless your soul, those theorists always are, if you're down upon 'em with a little fact!"
"Such as a Strasbourg pâté?—that is an unanswerable argument with most men, I believe," said Conran, who liked to hear the boy chatter. "What are you going to do with yourself to-night, Grand?"