Well! I have taken a leap over two weeks of time as the very best way to avoid falling into the error of becoming verbose.
It is a great shift of scene. Here I was, seated in a low-backed soft-cushioned chair, with my feet on another, a linen napkin tucked in about my throat, and over me was bending a strange little old man who addressed me as "monsieur le marquis," as he curled my hair with a pair of hot irons. Now truly this was a change from being a prisoner at Stapleten, a scarecrow-clad figure doddering along the highway, or even from the position of a gentleman's gentleman riding outside of a coach on the post-road. Yet all these three had I been almost within the fortnight, and what was I now? Why, "le Marquis de Brienne," who dined with noblemen, and had learned in these few short days to make pretty speeches to ladies of quality in silks and satins. What is more, I was fairly launched as a conspirator.
I hope that none who reads this will suppose that I was not sailing a proper course, or that I was living a life of deceit for the purpose of gain, for the reason that it is evident that I am gifted with an adaptable temperament. Oh no! I hope I can say that what money I had I came by honestly, for it had been given to me with the intention that I should pay it back at some future time (I have paid it long since, to the last penny), and I was imposing on no one, unless it was my friend Monsieur de Brissac, whose pleasure it was to do anything for me, and lastly there is nothing in all this that is intended as an apology of my position.
It cannot be said that I was luxuriously surrounded, despite that I was lolling in an easy-chair and having my hair curled by my own private servant. I was living in lodgings on the top floor of a house not far from Orchard Street, off Piccadilly, a house that had more the dignity of age in its appearance than an air of prosperity. I was the possessor of a suite of four rooms under the roof.
The click of the irons ceased for a minute.
"Ah, Monsieur le Marquis, I remember well your grandfather when I was a young man, and he not much older! He wore his own hair, monsieur. I never remember seeing him in anything else. It was much handsomer than a wig. You resemble him much, monsieur."
"IF MARY COULD ONLY SEE ME NOW."
This speech had called me back to myself, for at that moment I had been thinking of Mary Tanner and the old days on the hill-side at Belair. Yes, there was no doubt about it, she was much prettier than the Comtesse de Navarreins, with whom I had danced a quadrille the previous evening. What a strange career I had had! Oh, if Mary could see me now! How fine it was to be the nobleman! How Mary's eyes would open!