"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 a sofa, his long hair in
careless curls, his neckcloth loose, his habiliments flowing--_simplex
munditiis_, indeed--his grace all his own; seemingly negligent, never
slovenly; at ease every where 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 drily; "you never have 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 else's! _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 imposter 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.[9] 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."
_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 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?"
_Audley._--"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 upon it, he has made his calculations, and
would throw you into the bargain in any balance that he could strike
in his favor. 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 the 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 then did not resume his seat,
but moved to the mantel-piece, and leant 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 he abhorred, it was flattery.
"Recollect your Lucretius, Mr. Leslie, _Suave mare_, &c., '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-bye, Mr. Leslie, I hope that Mr. 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 country." 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 humorist 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.