flashed upon him that such a homage would be but a worthy reply to so much kindness. Dropping on one knee, and holding his arm aloft, M. Silvain called upon his Maker to listen to and attest the lover’s vow to perform, with the utmost fidelity of his soul, whatever wish Madame might honour him by signifying through Mademoiselle.
Greatly scandalized, Mary made all speed to remove her demonstrative admirer from the chamber.
CHAPTER XXIX.
The kind-hearted Scotsman had no idea of losing sight of Lygon, and they took up their quarters for the night at the same hotel. Arthur retired early, though not to sleep; and Urquhart, who had disposed of a few hours in the smoking pavilion in the rear of the house, by getting through about a couple of feet of tobacco, in company with a pleasant circle of English and Americans, who loved to congregate in that apartment and exchange experiences of travel, proceeded to bed about the time that his friend, outwearied with mental and physical fatigue, fell into a disturbed and feverish slumber. At an early hour in the morning they met again, Lygon pale and nervous, Urquhart cheery and vigorous, but with a dire grievance, at which he grumbled mightily, in being deprived of a huge shower bath, wherewith when at home he recruited his mighty limbs for the work of the day.
“These French will never be civilised Christians,” he said, “until they get the high service all over Paris, and they’ll not have that for many a day, for there is a whole army of rascally water-carriers who would get up a revolution if their monopoly were threatened. But perhaps our friend Looey” (it was so that he affectionately described the Elected of the Millions) “will have the pluck to cart them all off to Cayenne one of these days, and let his subjects wash themselves. It is as much a state necessity as was the massacre of the Janizaries out in Constantinople.”
Arthur Lygon did not seem much interested in the sanitary condition of the French metropolis, and Urquhart went on:
“You look as if you would be none the worse for a header into Loch Katrine, the which lake we have turned into every dressing-room in Glasgow, my man. You’ve nothing like that in London, which proves where the superior nation is to be found.”
Lygon smiled faintly, but was in no mood to give the good-natured battle with which in other days he had often met the Scot’s assertions in favour of his country.
“Well,” said Urquhart, “we’ll not be proud and vaunt over you too much, because that’s not the right thing, and if you’ll take off that cup of coffee, we’ll e’en go and sit on one of the benches in yon garden, and have our crack out.”
They went into the pleasant garden of the Tuileries, and Urquhart, with an engineer’s eye, selected a seat which he judged capable of sustaining his weight, and motioned to Arthur to take a place by his side.
“And now, my man, for confession and absolution, as yon dirty-looking priest that’s thumbing the little mass-book, and mumbling away there, would say. What’s on your mind?”
“More than I can tell you, Robert; but I will tell you a good deal, nevertheless.”
“But make a clean breast of it, Arthur. Even those doctors have the sense to tell you that you should hide nothing from your physician.”
“I will hide nothing that I ought to tell.”
“Well, well, we’ll take what we can get quietly, and then wrangle for the rest—that’s a bonny rule of life, my man.”
“I have come to France, Robert, upon an errand of the most singular kind,” said Arthur, who had been reduced by the prolonged struggle with himself to feel the necessity of making a confidence, and of receiving the support and counsel of a friend; but had resolved that, deeply tempted as he was to cast the whole burden of his sorrow before Urquhart, no word should convey to the latter a shadow of the gloomy doubts that were darkening his own existence, and menacing him with a future of loneliness and wretchedness.
“Political, perhaps, or official?” asked Urquhart. “That’s the way business is managed now, instead of leaving it to those diplomatic fellows who take an acre of foolscap to tell their Government that they have called on a man, and he was out of town.”
“Neither—I wish it were either. It is solely, painfully private,” replied Lygon.
Robert Urquhart addressed himself to listen intently.
“You took it for granted, yesterday, that Laura must be with me,” said Arthur, bringing out the name with an effort. “She is not with me, but I have followed her here.”
“Well,” returned Urquhart, cheerfully. “And what brought her?”
“I do not know—that is, I know in part.”
The Scotsman knitted his large brow, and his countenance assumed a sudden sternness, utterly foreign to its usual character, and far from pleasant to behold.
“I must hear more,” he said, “but I do not like the beginning.”
In a few words Arthur related to him the story of the sudden departure of Mrs. Lygon, suppressing mention of the note that had been left on the table of the bed-room, but proceeding to speak of his own journey to consult Mr. Berry.
“And why did Berry send you to France?” was the expected and inevitable question.
For this demand Arthur Lygon had prepared himself, and seizing Bertha’s hint of a political trouble in which Mr. Vernon had been involved, he transferred that suggestion to the counsel of the solicitor at Lipthwaite. Poor Bertha—could she but have known the care which the man whom she had deceived was taking to frame a reply that should exclude her name from question.
“I never heard of this plot, or whatever it was,” said Robert Urquhart.
“Nor I,” said Lygon, “but you are as well aware as I am that Mr. Vernon led a strange life before he settled at Lipthwaite, and there is nothing unlikely in the story.”
“Which, Arthur, you believe as much as I do. That is, you believe neither jot nor tittle of it.”
