The Young Seigneur Part 5

"The future will see methods better than Evolution," answered Brether, our great firm Scotchman.

"If so, they will be of it," retorted the Agnostic.

"Now just kindly let up on that a little." Riddle continued, "you fellows are too confounded theoretical for me. What's the good of going round congesting your cerebrums about problems you can't settle? I say let a fellow go it while he's young--moderately you know--and when he is old he will not regret the same. You fellows swot, and I sit in the orchestra chairs. You read your digestions to rack and ruin--or else you've got to be so mighty careful,--while I put in a fine gourmand's dinner every day, attended with the comforts of civilization. I dance while you are working up unsuccessful essays. The world owes nothing to fellows who do that. If you're fools enough to want to benefit the world, turn your minds to steam engines and telegraphs, that cheapen dinners and save us running, and I'll give you my blessing in spare moments when I've nothing to do. I take a kind of melancholy interest in this inst.i.tution, you know, but honestly upon my word, I hate your rational style, and I wouldn't for the world go round like a walking problem and have the fellows call me '_For_lorne Riddle.' The place where I enjoy myself most,--our private theatrical club,--is called the 'Inconsistents' on that principle. We don't care about being correct. We know we have the prettiest girls and chummiest fellows in town, and we're all right."

"Of course if a fellow's legs are so crooked that he can't dance or appear in a play, he has got to solace himself with billiards or eating, or some of the elegant accomplishments like playing the guitar. That's my system. There's philosophy in it too, by jove! I've done lots of philosophy by the smoke of a cigarette. It's philosophy properly tamed, in evening dress. It's philosophy made into a good Churchman, and Tory!"

"La morale de la cigarette!" suggested Quinet.

After all was not the highest thing simply to live the natural life of the time and place?

"I refuse that," I cried to myself, "I ask a Permanent, an Eternal!"

In speculative Philosophy I sought it, urged by the saying reported of Confucius:

"The Master said: 'I seek an all-pervading Unity,'" and much useless labor did I spend upon the profound work of the monarch of modern thinkers--Immanuel Kant.

In a depression at the end of this labor I finally threw my books aside.

It was afternoon, dull and dusty: a thunderstorm was brewing. I walked to the Square. What is that carriage with golden-bay horses?--that fresh image of loveliness--so calm--serene in queenly peace--the spiritual eyes! "Alexandra, I am miserable; elevate and purify my hopes with a smile, when I need thy presence--ma belle Anglaise"--No, she looks coldly and drives on in her equipage without even a recognition.--Is anything wrong?--I am deeply dispirited.--Another street--she pa.s.ses again without bowing--not even looking this time.

Wretched Haviland!--Where is mercy and what is left for me in the world?--I will rebel about this.--I will give up trying to seek the best, and turn away from Alexandra.

At dinner that night, my grandmother said "You must go to Picault's ball, my dear;" and my grave, oracular father added: "Yes, you shall go among our people now. I am about to send you to France."

The prospect of that journey, to which it had been my joy at other times to look forward, affected me little in my disturbed condition.

CHAPTER X.

THE ENTHUSIASM OF SOCIAL PLEASURE.

Grace Carter came over on the way to the ball, and when I descended I found her entertaining my grandmother, while a young man named Chinic, teaming with good nature and compliments, sat near her and rising with the rest grasped me by the hand as I entered. Grace too, smiling, held out her hand. As we went to the door my grandmother delivered me over to her, saying playfully: "Chamilly will be in your charge this evening. He is melancholy. C'est a toi de le guerir."

"I will be his sister of Charity!" she cried merrily and pressed my arm.

I laughed. It was not so undelightful to be taken into the companions.h.i.+p of a graceful girl.

As we whirled along in the carriage, the half-moon in the dark blue sky, making heavy shadows on the trees and mansions, lit her cheek and Greek-knotted hair on the side next me with a glamour so that her head and shoulders shone softly in it like a bust of Venus.

Picault's was an extensive family mansion of sandstone, built thirty years before for one of the wealthiest merchants of Montreal. It was on a corner.

One end rose into a rococo tower, lit then with the curious kind of clearness produced by a half-moon's light. In the centre, before the hospital door, projected a pillared portico, under which our carriage drove, and at the other end lurked the shades of a ma.s.sive gate-way with cobbled road leading through. The carriage-road past the front was bordered by lilacs in bloom--on the one side, as we went through, all shadows, on the other faintly colored, mingling their fragrance with that of huge rose-bushes.

The doors were thrown open, and we saw a great staircase in a wide hall hung with colored lights, and entering pa.s.sed into one of the most lavish of interiors. As I looked around the dressing-room to which Chinic and myself were shown and saw the windows stacked with tropical plants, the colored candles set about the walls in silver sconces; the bijou paintings and the graceful carving of the furniture; the deep blending of tints and shades in the carpets, curtains and ornaments, I felt another new experience--the sensation of luxury--and dropping back in an easy chair, asked my companion:

"Chinic, what does Picault do?"

"Ma foi, I do not pretend to say," replied the young Frenchman, half turning towards me from the mirror where he was brus.h.i.+ng his hair."

Suffice it he is a millionaire, and I get summoned to drink his wine.

Some say he is in politics, others that he deals with stocks; for me it is enough that he deals with the dance and good table. Is it not magnificent to so live? I would sell my soul for fifteen years of it."

The remark set me thinking a moment, but it only complicated the charm of delivering oneself over to sensations.

We met Grace at the head of the staircase. She had never looked more Venus-like than in this fairy glow, with a plant-filled window behind her, opening out into the summer darkness. The music of a waltz of Strauss was rising from below, and I felt a wonderful thrill as she again took my arm.

Our respects being paid to the hostess, Madame Picault, Grace gave me a couple of dances on her card, and introducing me to a slender young girl, with pretty eyes, and two very long, crisp plaits of hair, went off on the arm of some one else.

As my father's plan of education had taken me hitherto wholly into English society, so far as into any, the unique feeling of being a stranger to my own race came with full force upon me for a moment and I stood silent beside the pretty eyes and looked at the scene. The walls were a perfect gallery of sublime landscapes, and small pictures heavily set; four royal chandeliers threw illumination over a maze of flowered trains and flushed complexions, moving through a stately "Lancers,"

under a ceiling of dark paintings, divided as if framed, by heavy gilded mouldings, like the ceiling of a Venetian Palace.

"Is it not gay--that scene there!" I exclaimed.

"It is charming, Monsieur," said the pretty eyes. "Montreal is altogether charming."

"Ah, you come from Quebec, Mademoiselle?"

"No, Monsieur, from New Orleans," she replied confidingly.

Now the Louisiana French are very interesting to us French of Canada.

Once we formed parts of one continuous Empire, though now divided by many thousands of miles, and their fate is naturally a bond of strong sympathy to us.

"We have there only the Carnival," she continued with the winning prettiness of a child. "That is in the spring, and the young men dress up for three or four days and throw bon-bons and flowers at us. When the carnival is over, they present the young ladies with the jewels they have worn?"

"And the ladies return them smiles more prized than jewels?"

She looked up at me in fresh-natured delight.

"Monsieur, you must come to New Orleans sometime, during the season of the Carnival."

"I shall most certainly if you will a.s.sure me the ladies of New Orleans are all of one kind."

"You are pleased to jest, sir. But judge from my sister. Is she not handsome?"

Her sister,--a Southern beauty, the sensation just then of Montreal,--was truly a n.o.ble type. The pretty one watched my rising admiration.

"What do you think of her?"

"She is wonderful.--And she is your sister?"

"My married sister, Monsieur. She is on her way to France. I will tell you a little romance about her. Last year she came to Montreal with our father, and they were delighted with it. She used to say she would not marry a Frenchman; nor a blonde. Above all she detested Paris, and declared she would never live there. While she was here she left her portrait with Mde. De Rheims as a souvenir. Soon a young officer in the army of France comes out and visits Mde. De Rheims and sees the picture of my sister. He was struck with it, declared he would see the original, travelled straight to New Orleans, and has married my sister. See him there--_he is a blonde_ and _he is taking her to Paris_."

"How strange that is! Montreal is a dangerous place for the ladies of your family."

She glanced at me with sly pleasure.