And here let me cry “Halt.” There are things in this world—or that is my belief—too pitiful to be set down in writing, and of these, Alain’s collapse was one. It may be, too, that Mr. Romaine’s British righteousness accorded rather ill with the weapon he used so unsparingly. Of Fenn I need only say, that the luscious rogue shouldered through the doorway as though he had a public duty to discharge, and only the contrariness of circumstances had prevented his discharging it before. He cringed to Mr. Romaine, who held him and the whole nexus of his villainies in the hollow of his hand. He was even obsequiously eager to denounce his fellow-traitor. Under a like compulsion, he would (I feel sure) have denounced his own mother. I saw the sturdy Dudgeon’s mouth working like a bull-terrier’s over a shrewmouse. And between them, Alain had never a chance. Not for the first time in this history, I found myself all but taking sides with him in sheer repulsion from the barbarity of the attack. It seemed that it was through Fenn that Mr. Romaine had first happened on the scent; and the greater rogue had held back a part of the evidence, and would trade it now—“having been led astray—to any gentleman that would let bygones be bygones.” And it was I, at length, who interposed when my cousin was beaten to his knees, and, having dismissed Mr. Burchell Fenn, restored the discussion to a businesslike footing. The end of it was, that Alain renounced all his claims, and accepted a yearly pension of six thousand francs. Mr. Romaine made it a condition that he should never set foot again in England; but seeing that he would certainly be arrested for debt within twenty-four hours of his landing at Dover, I thought this unnecessary.
“A good day’s work,” said the lawyer, as we stood together in the street outside.
But I was silent.
“And now, Mr. Anne, if I may have the honour of your company at dinner—shall we say Tortoni’s?—we will on our way step round to my hotel, the Quatre Saisons, behind the Hôtel de Ville, and order a calèche and four to be in readiness.”
CHAPTER XXXVI
I GO TO CLAIM FLORA
Behold me now speeding northwards on the wings of love, ballasted by Mr. Romaine. But, indeed, that worthy man climbed into the calèche with something less than his habitual gravity. He was obviously and pardonably flushed with triumph. I observed that now and again he smiled to himself in the twilight, or drew in his breath and emitted it with a martial pouf! And when he began to talk—which he did as soon as we were clear of the Saint-Denis barrier—the points of the family lawyer were untrussed. He leaned back in the calèche with the air of a man who had subscribed to the Peace of Europe, and dined well on top of it. He criticised the fortifications with a wave of his toothpick, and discoursed derisively and at large on the Emperor’s abdication, on the treachery of the Duke of Ragusa, on the prospects of the Bourbons, and on the character of M. Talleyrand, with anecdotes which made up in raciness for what they lacked in authenticity.
We were bowling through La Chapelle, when he pulled out his snuff-box and proffered it.