"There you do me wrong. I should be very proud to captivate Mr. Repton."
"Now we are on the good road at last!" said he, gayly; "for Mr. Repton is dying to be captivated."
"The fortress that is only anxious to surrender offers no great glory to the conqueror," replied she.
"By Jove! I "m glad you "re not at the bar."
"If I had been, I could never have shown the same forbearance as Mr.
Repton."
"How so? What do you mean?"
"I never could have refused a silk gown, sir; and they tell me you have done so!"
"Ah! they told you that," said he, coloring with pleasurable pride.
"Well, it"s quite true. The fact is correct, but I don"t know what explanation they have given of it!"
"There was none, sir,--or, at least, none that deserved the name."
"Then what was your own reading of it?" asked he.
"Simply this, sir: that a proud man may very well serve in the ranks, but spurn the grade of a petty officer."
"By Jove; it is strange to find that a young lady should understand one"s motives better than an old Minister," said he, with an evident satisfaction.
"It would be unjust, sir, were I to arrogate any credit to my own perspicuity in this case," said she, hastily; "for I was aided in my judgment by what, very probably, never came under the Minister"s eyes."
"And what was that?"
"A little volume which I discovered one day in the library, ent.i.tled "Days of the Historical Society of Trinity College," wherein I found Mr.
Repton"s name not only one of the first in debate, but the very first in enunciating the great truths of political liberty. In fact, I might go further, and say, the only one who had the courage to proclaim the great principles of the French Revolution."
"Ah,--yes. I was a boy,--a mere boy,--very rash,--full of hope,--full of enthusiasm," said Repton, with an embarra.s.sment that increased at every word. "We all took fire from the great blaze beside us just then; but, my dear young lady, the flame has died out,--very fortunately, too; for if it had n"t, it would have burned us up with it. We were wrong,--wrong with Burke, to be sure,--_Errare Platone_, as one may say,--but still wrong."
"You were wrong, sir, in confounding casualties with true consequences; wrong as a physician would be who abandoned his treatment from mistaking the symptoms of disease for the effects of medicine. You set out by declaring there was a terrible malady to be treated, and you shrink back affrighted at the first results of your remedies; you did worse; you accommodated your change of principles to party, and from the great champions of liberty you descended to be--modern Whigs!"
"Why, what have we here? A Girondist, I verily believe!" said Repton, looking in her face with a smile of mingled surprise and amazement.
"I don"t much care for the name you may give me; but I am one who thinks that the work of the French Revolution is sure of its accomplishment.
We shall very probably not do the thing in the same way, but it will be done, nevertheless; for an Act of Parliament, though not so speedy, will be as effectual as a "Noyade," and a Reforming Administration will work as cleanly as a Const.i.tuent!"
"But see; look at France at this moment. Is not society reconst.i.tuted pretty near to the old models? What evidence is there that the prestige of rank has suffered from the shock of revolution?"
"The best evidence. n.o.body believes in it,--not one. Society is reconst.i.tuted just as a child constructs a card-house to see how high he can carry the frail edifice before it tumbles. The people--the true people of the Continent--look at the pageantry of a court and a n.o.bility just as they do on a stage procession, and criticise it in the same spirit. They endure it so long as their indolence or their caprice permit, and then, some fine morning, they "ll dash down the whole edifice; and be a.s.sured that the fragments of the broken toy will never suggest the sentiment to repair it."
"You are a Democrat of the first water!" exclaimed Repton, in half amazement.
"I am simply for the a.s.sertion of the truth everywhere and in everything,--in religion and in politics, as in art and literature. If the people be the source of power, don"t divert the stream into another channel; and, above all, don"t insist that it should run up-hill! Come abroad, Mr. Repton,--just come over with us to Paris,--and see if what I am telling you be so far from the fact. You "ll find, too, that it is not merely the low-born, the ign.o.ble, and the poor who profess these opinions, but the great, the t.i.tled, and the wealthy men of fourteen quarterings and ancient lineage; and who, sick to death of a contest with a rich bourgeoisie, would rather start fair in the race again, and win whatever place their prowess or their capacity might giye them. You "ll hear very good socialism from the lips of dukes and princesses who swear by Fourier."
Repton stared at her in silence, not more amazed at the words he heard than at the manner and air of her who spoke them; for she had gradually a.s.sumed a degree of earnestness and energy which imparted to her features a character of boldness and determination such as he had not seen in them before..
"Yes," resumed she, as though following out her own thoughts, "it is your new creations, your enn.o.bled banker, your starred and cordoned agitator of the Bourse, who now defends his order, and stands up for the divine right of misrule! The truly n.o.ble have other sentiments!"
"There "s nothing surprises me so much," said Repton, at last, "as to hear these sentiments from one who has lived surrounded by all the blandishments of a condition that owes its existence to an aristocracy, and never could have arisen without one,--who has lived that delightful life of refined leisure and elevating enjoyment, such as forms the atmosphere of only one cla.s.s throughout the whole world. How would you bear to exchange this for the chaotic struggle that you point at?"
"As for me, sir, I only saw the procession from the window. I may, perhaps, walk in it when I descend to the street; but really," added she, laughing, "this is wandering very far out of the record. I had promised myself to captivate Mr. Repton, and here I am, striving to array every feeling of his heart and every prejudice of his mind against me."
"It is something like five-and-fifty years since I last heard such sentiments as you have just uttered," said Repton, gravely. "I was young and ardent,--full of that hopefulness in mankind which is, after all, the life-blood of Republicanism; and here I am now, an old, time-hardened lawyer, with very little faith in any one. How do you suppose that such opinions can chime in with all I have witnessed in the interval?"
"Come over to Paris, sir," was her reply.
"And I would ask nothing better," rejoined he. "Did I ever tell you of what Harry Parsons said to Macnatty when he purposed visiting France, after the peace of "15? "Now is the time to see the French capital,"
said Mac. "I "ll put a guinea in one pocket and a shirt in the other, and start to-morrow." "Ay, sir," said Parsons, "and never change either till you come back again!""
Once back in his accustomed field, the old lawyer went along recounting story after story, every name seeming to suggest its own anecdote. Nor was Kate, now, an ungenerous listener; on the contrary, she relished his stores of wit and repartee. Thus they, too, went on their journey!
The third carriage contained Madame Hortense, Lady Dorothea"s French maid; Mrs. Runt, an inferior dignitary of the toilet; and Mark Peddar, Mr. Martin"s "gentleman,"--a party which, we are forced to own, seemed to combine more elements of sociality than were gathered together in the vehicles that preceded them. To _their_ share there were no regrets for leaving home,--no sorrow at quitting a spot endeared to them by long a.s.sociation. The sentiment was one of unalloyed satisfaction. They were escaping from the gloom of a long exile, and about to issue forth into that world which they longed for as eagerly as their betters. And why should they not? Are not all its pleasures, all its a.s.sociations more essentially adapted to such natures; and has solitude one single compensation for all its depression to such as these?
"Our n.o.ble selves," said Mr. Peddar, filling the ladies" gla.s.ses, and then his own; for a very appetizing luncheon was there spread out before them, and four bottles of long-necked gracefulness rose from amidst the crystal ruins of a well-filled ice-pail. "Mam"selle, it is your favorite tipple, and deliciously cool."
"Perfection," replied mademoiselle, with a foreign accent, for she had been long in England; "and I never enjoyed it more. _Au revoir_,"
added she, waving her hand towards the tall towers of Cro" Martin, just visible above the trees,--"_Au revoir!_"
"Just so,--till I see you again," said Mrs. Runt; "and I "m sure I "ll take good care that day won"t come soon. It seems like a terrible nightmare when I think of the eight long years I pa.s.sed there."
"_Et moi_, twelve! Miladi engage me, so to say, _provisoirement_, to come to Ireland, but with a promise of travel abroad; that we live in Paris, Rome, Naples,--_que sais-je?_ I accept,--I arrive,--_et me voici!_" And mademoiselle threw back her veil, the better to direct attention to the ravages time and exile had made upon her charms.
"Hard lines, ma"am," said Peddar, whose sympathy must not be accused of an _equivoque_; "and here am I, that left the best single-handed situation in all England,--Sir Augustus Hawleigh"s,--a young fellow just of age, and that never knew what money was, to come down here at a salary positively little better than a country curate"s, and live the life of--of--what shall I say?--"
"No, the leg, if you please, Mr. Peddar; no more wine. Well, just one gla.s.s, to drink a hearty farewell to the old house."
"I "m sure I wish Mary joy of her residence there," said Peddar, adjusting his cravat; "she is a devilish fine girl, and might do better, though."
"She has no ambitions,--no what you call them?--no aspirations for _le grand monde_; so perhaps she has reason to stay where she is."
"But with a young fellow of _ton_ and fashion, mam"selle,--a fellow who has seen life,--to guide and bring her out, trust me, there are excellent capabilities in that girl." And as Mr. Peddar enunciated the sentiment, his hands ran carelessly through his hair, and performed a kind of impromptu toilet.
"She do dress herself _bien mal_."
"Disgracefully so," chimed in Mrs. Runt "I believe, whenever she bought a gown, her first thought was what it should turn into when she "d done with it."
"I thought that la Henderson might have taught her something," said Peddar, affectedly.
"_Au contraire_,--she like to make the contrast more strong; she always seek to make say, "_Regardez_, mademoiselle, see what a _tournure_ is there!""
"Do you think her handsome, Mr. Peddar?" asked Mrs. Runt.
"Handsome, yes; but not _my_ style,--not one of what _I_ call _my_ women; too much of this kind of thing, eh?" And he drew his head back, and threw into his features an expression of exaggerated scorn.