you are not deceiving me. Matilde has told you something about Madame Lygon.”
“It may be so, but Matilde has made some mistake, has misconceived some words. Madame Lygon is an angel.”
“This is a good deal of homage for a hundred and fifty francs, my dear Silvain, unless I take the more flattering view of the case, and suppose that you are praising the lady to please me.”
“I speak from my heart,” said Silvain, impressively. “I am grieved that Mademoiselle’s estimate of her differs from my own, but I retain my own, nevertheless. But I must say no more on that subject.”
“Well, we may talk of something better than women, I dare say,” said Ernest. “I will pour out some of my sorrows to you, but of course, in the strictest confidence. Nay, I don’t mean that I doubt you, but when a man has a serious affair of the heart, he gets very untrustworthy, for the time. I don’t know a more demoralising thing than falling in love—it destroys all a man’s ideas of the sacredness of friendship, and makes him sacrifice anything and everything in the hope of pleasing somebody who is laughing at him all the time, and whom he will heartily hate in twelve months.”
“Frightful creed!” said Silvain. “Do not trust me.”
“Yes, I will, because you have a brain as well as a heart.” What have they been telling this ass, thought Ernest. Surely nothing of the truth—three women in council would know better than that.
“My dear Silvain,” he said, linking his arm in that of his companion, “I am so glad that you don’t play.”
“Why, I never could afford it in the days when I desired to play, and now that I can afford it, I don’t care about it. So I have no merit.”
“I wish I had as much, on that head. I have been most unlucky.”
“Lately?”
“Yes, this week. I have been constantly losing. I have been into Paris three nights running, and every night I have come away with just enough to bring me back. Another visit, and I shall be without a napoleon. Pooh, my dear fellow, take your hand out of your pocket. I do not speak literally, and certainly I would not plunder a man who is making arrangements for marriage. Besides, you could not do what I want. I owe a good deal, and, in fact, I must instantly apply to a certain source which I hate to trouble, but one must live.”
“You are fortunate in having friends.”
“Yes, I have two friends who will do a good deal for me, though not with any good will. But it will not do to be fastidious.”
There, thought Ernest, if you are what I suppose, take that information back with you for the delight of those who hire you.
“You reject my purse?” said Silvain. “If you took it, you would give me a better proof of your friendship.”
“Then I will take it,” said Ernest, laying hand something abruptly on the porte-monnaie produced by Silvain, and dropping it into a coat pocket. There was a touch of humour on his part in the transaction, and perhaps a touch of ill-humour, or at all events of surprise on that of M. Silvain, who might not have expected to be taken so promptly at his word.
“I will take it,” continued Ernest, gazing kindly on Silvain, “but chiefly to show how completely I consider any little differences between us adjusted for ever. There cannot be much here, and very much is needed for my immediate wants, but whatever is here I will repay to the last centime before I leave France.”
“Do not speak of repayment,”said Silvain, with a very good grace. “If I ask you to return the purse itself, it is only because—”
“Ah, I should have thought of that,” said Ernest, taking it out. And he deliberately removed the entire contents of the purse,—somi seven or eight napoleons and some silver—am: pocketed them solemnly. He then handed the porte-monnaie to his companion.
“A gage d’amour. May it be luckier to you than anything of the kind which I have ever had.”
“Do you mean to abandon play, M. Adair?” asked Silvain.
“Why should I? It is true that I lose; but then, as I have told you, I possess friends who have sufficient good feeling to minister to my needs, though not enough to do so graciously. No, I have no other happiness, and I shall not deny myself that single solace.”
“No other happiness,” repeated M. Silvain, “and you are appreciated in a certain quarter?”
What have they made him believe, thought Ernest again. “Ah, my dear Silvain, if you knew all.”
“I know nothing. But I have my surmises.”
“They make me a happier man than I am,” said Ernest, in the tone in which men of his class say that which they wish should be disbelieved. And M. Silvain, understanding this, again shrugged his shoulders, and thus was performed the little drama, talk and pantomime, in which a thousand honours have been lied away, and so will be many a thousand more, until that drama comes on for damnation. But, in this case, the actors were differently circumstanced, the one playing the part of a scoundrel, the other but affecting credulity. He would have liked to fight Ernest again, for the tone in which he had spoken, and, like a man with his feelings under proper control, he made a very different proposition.
“If instead of going again to Paris to-night, you care to come and smoke in my little apartment—” he said.
“Well, I will, and re-baptise our friendship in your excellent cognac. You could not please me more than by the proposal. Shall we be alone?”
“Unless you wish it otherwise.”
“I would sooner talk to you than anybody else, my dear Silvain. But then I would also sooner rob anybody else than you, my dear Silvain. So if you happen to meet any one who has a taste for écarté, and a few Napoleons to justify such