"But do come; change your dress, return and dine with me; you will have
just time, Harley. You will meet the most eminent men of our party;
surely they are worth your study, philosopher that you affect to be."
Thus said Audley Egerton to Lord L'Estrange, with whom he had been riding
(after the toils of his office). The two gentlemen were in Audley's
library,--Mr. Egerton, as usual, buttoned up, seated in his chair, in the
erect posture of a man who scorns "inglorious ease;" Harley, as usual,
thrown at length on the sofa., his long hair in careless curls, his
neckcloth loose, his habiliments flowing simplex mundit is, indeed, his
grace all his own; seemingly negligent, never slovenly; at ease
everywhere and with every one, even with Mr. Audley Egerton, who chilled
or awed the ease out of most people.
"Nay, my dear Audley, forgive me. But your eminent men are all men of
one idea, and that not a diverting one, politics! politics! politics!
The storm in the saucer."
"But what is your life, Harley?--the saucer without the storm?"
"Do you know, that's very well said, Audley? I did not think you had so
much liveliness of repartee. Life! life! it is insipid, it is shallow,
--no launching Argosies in the saucer. Audley, I have the oddest
fancy--"
"That of course," said Audley, dryly; "you never had any other. What is
the new one?"
HARLEY (with great gravity).--"Do you believe in Mesmerism?"
AUDLEY.--"Certainly not."
HARLEY.--"If it were in the power of an animal magnetizer to get me out
of my own skin into somebody's else! That's my fancy! I am so tired of
myself,--so tired! I have run through all my ideas,--know every one of
them by heart. When some pretentious impostor of an idea perks itself up
and says, 'Look at me,--I 'm a new acquaintance,' I just give it a nod,
and say 'Not at all, you have only got a new coat on; you are the same
old wretch that has bored me these last twenty years; get away.' But if
one could be in a new skin, if I could be for half-an-hour your tall
porter, or one of your eminent matter-of-fact men, I should then really
travel into a new world.' Every man's brain must be a world in itself,
eh? If I could but make a parochial settlement even in yours, Audley,--
run over all your thoughts and sensations. Upon my life, I 'll go and
talk to that French mesmerizer about it."
[If, at the date in which Lord L'Estrange held this conversation
with Mr. Egerton, Alfred de Musset had written his comedies, we
should suspect that his lordship had plagiarized from one of them
the whimsical idea that he here vents upon Audley. In repeating it,
the author at least cannot escape from the charge of obligation to a
writer whose humour is sufficiently opulent to justify the loan.]
AUDLEY (who does not seem to like the notion of having his thoughts and
sensations rummaged, even by his friend, and even in fancy)--"Pooh, pooh,
pooh! Do talk like a man of sense."
HARLEY.--"Man of sense! Where shall I find a model? I don't know a man
of sense!--never met such a creature. Don't believe it ever existed. At
one time I thought Socrates must have been a man of sense: a delusion; he
would stand gazing into the air, and talking to his Genius from sunrise
to sunset. Is that like a man of sense? Poor Audley! how puzzled he
looks! Well, I'll try and talk sense to oblige you. And first" (here
Harley raised himself on his elbow),--"first, is it true, as I have heard
vaguely, that you are paying court to the sister of that infamous Italian
traitor?"
"Madame di Negra? No: I am not paying court to her," answered Audley,
with a cold smile. "But she is very handsome; she is very clever; she is
useful to me,--I need not say how or why; that belongs to my metier as a
politician. But I think, if you will take my advice, or get your friend
to take it, I could obtain from her brother, through my influence with
her, some liberal concessions to your exile. She is very anxious to know
where he is."
"You have not told her?"
"No; I promised you I would keep that secret."
"Be sure you do; it is only for some mischief, some snare, that she could
desire such information. Concessions! pooh! This is no question of
concessions, but of rights."
"I think you should leave your friend to judge of that."
"Well, I will write to him. Meanwhile, beware of this woman. I have
heard much of her abroad, and she has the character of her brother for
duplicity and--"
"Beauty," interrupted Audley, turning the conversation with practised
adroitness. "I am told that the count is one of the handsomest men in
Europe, much handsomer than his sister still, though nearly twice her
age. Tut, tut, Harley; fear not for me. I am proof against all feminine
attractions. This heart is dead."
"Nay, nay; it is not for you to speak thus,--leave that to me. But even
I will not say it. The heart never dies. And you; what have you lost?--
a wife; true: an excellent, noble-hearted woman. But was it love that
you felt for her? Enviable man, have you ever loved?"
"Perhaps not, Harley," said Audley, with a sombre aspect and in dejected
accents; "very few men ever have loved, at least as you mean by the word.
But there are other passions than love that kill the heart, and reduce us
to mechanism."
While Egerton spoke, Harley turned aside, and his breast heaved. There
was a short silence; Audley was the first to break it.
"Speaking of my lost wife, I am sorry that you do not approve what I have
done for her young kinsman, Randal Leslie."
HARLEY (recovering himself with an effort).--"Is it true kindness to bid
him exchange manly independence for the protection of an official
patron?"
AUDLEV.--"I did not bid him. I gave him his choice. At his age, I
should have chosen as he has done."
HARLEY.--"I trust not; I think better of you. But answer me one question
frankly, and then I will ask another. Do you mean to make this young man
your heir?"
AUDLEY (with a slight embarrassment).--"Heir, pooh! I am young still. I
may live as long as he--time enough to think of that."
HARLEY.--"Then now to my second question. Have you told this youth
plainly that he may look to you for influence, but not for wealth?"
AUDLEY (firmly).--"I think I have; but I shall repeat it more
emphatically."
HARLEY.--"Then I am satisfied as to your conduct, but not as to his.
For he has too acute an intellect not to know what it is to forfeit
independence; and, depend on it, he has made his calculations, and would
throw you into the bargain in any balance that he could strike in his
favour. You go by your experience in judging men; I by my instincts.
Nature warns us as it does the inferior animals,--only we are too
conceited, we bipeds, to heed her. My instincts of soldier and gentleman
recoil from that old young man. He has the soul of the Jesuit. I see it
in his eye, I hear it in the tread of his foot; /volto sciolto/ he has
not; /i pensieri stretti/ he has. Hist! I hear now his step in the
hall. I should know it from a thousand. That's his very touch on the
handle of the door."
Randal Leslie entered. Harley--who, despite his disregard for forms, and
his dislike to Randal, was too high-bred not to be polite to his junior
in age or inferior in rank-rose and bowed. But his bright piercing eyes
did not soften as they caught and bore down the deeper and more latent
fire in Randal's. Harley did not resume his seat, but moved to the
mantelpiece, and leaned against it.
RANDAL.--"I have fulfilled your commissions, Mr. Egerton. I went first
to Maida Hill, and saw Mr. Burley. I gave him the check, but he said it
was too much, and he should return half to the banker; he will write the
article as you suggested. I then--"
AUDLEY.--"Enough, Randal! we will not fatigue Lord L'Estrange with these
little details of a life that displeases him,--the life political."
HARLEY.---"But these details do not displease me; they reconcile me to my
own life. Go on, pray, Mr. Leslie."
Randal had too much tact to need the cautioning glance of Mr. Egerton.
He did not continue, but said with a soft voice, "Do you think, Lord
L'Estrange, that the contemplation of the mode of life pursued by others
can reconcile a man to his own, if he had before thought it needed a
reconciler?" Harley looked pleased, for the question was ironical; and
if there was a thing in the world be abhorred, it was flattery.
"Recollect your Lucretius, Mr. Leslie, the /Suave mare/, etc., 'pleasant
from the cliff to see the mariners tossed on the ocean.' Faith, I think
that sight reconciles one to the cliff, though, before, one might have
been teased by the splash from the spray, and deafened by the scream of
the sea-gulls. But I leave you, Audley. Strange that I have heard no
more of my soldier! Remember I have your promise when I come to claim
it. Good-by, Mr. Leslie, I hope that Burley's article will be worth the
check."
Lord L'Estrange mounted his horse, which was still at the door, and rode
through the Park. But he was no longer now unknown by sight. Bows and
nods saluted him on every side.
"Alas, I am found out, then," said he to himself. "That terrible Duchess
of Knaresborough, too--I must fly my coun try." He pushed his horse into
a canter, and was soon out of the Park. As he dismounted at his father's
sequestered house, you would have hardly supposed him the same whimsical,
fantastic, but deep and subtle humourist that delighted in perplexing the
material Audley, for his expressive face was unutterably serious. But
the moment he came into the presence of his parents, the countenance was
again lighted and cheerful. It brightened the whole room like sunshine.