“As a fact, my dear fellow, I weary of the achievements of my glorious uncle. I am not disposed to emulate them at all! One is not born into the world for the purpose of copying one’s predecessors.... I prefer to strike out a line extraordinary—astounding—marvelous—above all, original and new!”
De Moray merely bowed, but the bow was to Sire my Friend superlatively offensive. He rose up, forgetful of his disadvantages of stature, and said, looking round upon the dyed heads of hair and painted elderly faces surmounting the brilliantly laced and bedizened uniforms—and as of habit, assuming his Napoleonic attitude.
“These English are bound to the East to carry out my Mission—to fulfill the destiny presaged by my Fortunate Star. You, my brother, who found it inconvenient to know me when that Star was below the horizon, have since accused me to your confidants of abrogating to myself the credit of successes that others have helped me to achieve. You taunt me perpetually with the desire to emulate the First Napoleon. Well! I shall show you soon—very soon—some things accomplished that he could not do. I will avenge at one blow the catastrophe of the Moskva, the defeat of Waterloo, and the humiliation of St. Helena. How? Did you ask how? By all means you shall learn!”
He laughed, and that outrageous mirth did such violence to the sense of hearing that even de Moray shuddered, and St. Arnaud made a clicking sound of dismay with his tongue against his teeth. The speaker resumed, looking glassily about him:
“My uncle would have declared War against the nation he designed to crush and conquer. His nephew, wiser than he, will share with her the apple of amity, cut, Borgia-fashion, with a knife poisoned only on one side! Needed only to further my plan that Russia should pick a quarrel with Turkey. The old question of her authority over the Eastern Christians—the smoldering grudge in the matter of her claim to precedence of admission to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher—served me excellently! And I have championed the cause of the Sultan—I take the field against the Northern Power, with England my Ally!”
He lifted the drooping lids of those eyes of his, and they were dim and lack-luster no longer. They blazed with a radiance that was infernal and malign. He said—and the breathless silence of his hearers was intoxicating joy to him:
“And, blinded by that stiff-necked pride of hers, she will walk into a death-trap, planned and devised and perfected by the man she has despised! Russia shall have supremacy over the Danubian Principalities. I may even cede her Constantinople—I am not quite certain.... But Great Britain shall be France’s footstool and East India her warming-pan!”
He fancied de Morny about to interrupt, and said, turning upon him with a tigerish suavity:
“Proofs—you require proofs! Assuredly, you shall have them. Be good enough to follow me. This way, Messieurs!”
He led the way to a room at the end of the suite, the walls of which were hung with maps, plans and diagrams, and lined with bookshelves and presses; whose tables were loaded with models of public buildings, steam-boilers, and engines of artillery; and where the gilded cornices and moldings were chipped with rifle and revolver bullets, as had been those of the smaller cabinet at the Élysée. Lamps burning under green shades illuminated this place of labor. He took a Bramah key from under the setting of a signet ring he wore, unlocked a press and racked back the sliding doors in their grooves with a gesture of the theater. The alphabetically-numbered shelves were loaded with papers. He said, indicating these: