“I was proud to procure him that honor.”
“Poor devil!” said Mr. Kingspring. “I suspect you have done for him; if he has such a thing as a heart he will go home a miserable man to-night. I never saw Mlle. Polly looking so unmercifully pretty. D’Arres-Vallon you say his name is? Does he spell it in one word or two? I used to know two families of that name; one spelt it D’Arvalhon, the other D’Arres-Vallon. Which is his?”
“Neither; he writes it in one word with a big D; he does not boast the noble particule.”
“Then he is a man of no family?”
“None whatever. He is what we call the son of his works; he has risen in his profession by sheer force of intelligence and moral worth. There is not an officer in the army more respected than Darvallon.”
Pearl looked again at Polly’s partner, and he struck her as still more prepossessing than at the first glance.
“Amongst military men I can imagine its making no difference; but socially his low birth must subject him to disagreeables now and then,” observed Mr. Kingspring, following the direction of Pearl’s eyes, and surveying the hussar with the sort of interest one bestows on a curious variety of animal new to one’s experience.
“The man who would subject Darvallon to anything of the sort would be either a fool or a snob,” replied Léon coldly. “I suppose there are plenty of both going about the world; but men like Darvallon have a sort of charm that keeps them at a distance.”
Mr. Kingspring felt that this remark addressed to him was not that of a perfect gentleman; it sounded too like a snub. But the Léopolds, as Mme. de Kerbec said, were after all only Empire people, Léon’s grandfather having been made a baron by the first Napoleon.
Pearl admired Léon for standing up so bravely for his friend; there was that in her which responded instinctively to everything noble, even when it was violently against her own opinions or sympathies.