In the Days of My Youth Part 18

"As a Greek girl covers her head with sequins to show the amount of her fortune, and an English girl puts a rose in her hair for grace and beauty only," said I, fancying that I had made rather a clever observation. I was therefore considerably disappointed when Dalrymple merely said, "just so."

The lady in the larger room here finished her song and returned to her seat, amid a shower of _bravas_.

"She sings exquisitely," said I, following her with my eyes.

"And so she ought," replied my friend. "She is the Countess Rossi, whom you may have heard of as Mademoiselle Sontag."

"What! the celebrated Sontag?" I exclaimed.

"The same. And the gentleman to whom she is now speaking is no less famous a person than the author of _Pelham_."

I was as much delighted as a rustic at a menagerie, and Dalrymple, seeing this, continued to point out one celebrity after another till I began no longer to remember which was which. Thus Lamartine, Horace Vernet, Scribe, Baron Humboldt, Miss Bremer, Arago, Auber, and Sir Edwin Landseer, were successively indicated, and I thought myself one of the most fortunate fellows in Paris, only to be allowed to look upon them.

"I suppose the spirit of lion-hunting is an original instinct," I said, presently. "Call it vulgar excitement, if you will; but I must confess that to see these people, and to be able to write about them to my father, is just the most delightful thing that has happened to me since I left home."

"Call things by their right names, Damon," said Dalrymple, good-naturedly. "If you were a _parvenu_ giving a party, and wanted all these fine folks to be seen at your house, that would be lion-hunting; but being whom and what you are, it is hero-worship--a disease peculiar to the young; wholesome and inevitable, like the measles."

"What have I done," said a charming voice close by, "that Captain Dalrymple will not even deign to look upon me?"

The charming voice proceeded from the still more charming lips of an exceedingly pretty brunette in a dress of light green silk, fastened here and there with bouquets of rosebuds. Plump, rosy, black-haired, bright-eyed, bewilderingly coquettish, this lady might have been about thirty years of age, and seemed by no means unconscious of her powers of fascination.

"I implore a thousand pardons, Madame...." began my friend.

"_Comment_! A thousand pardons for a single offence!" exclaimed the lady. "What an unreasonable culprit!"

To which she added, quite audibly, though behind the temporary shelter of her fan:--

"Who is this _beau garcon_ whom you seem to have brought with you?"

I turned aside, affecting not to hear the question; but could not help listening, nevertheless. Of Dalrymple's reply, however, I caught but my own name.

"So much the better," observed the lady. "I delight in civilizing handsome boys. Introduce him."

Dalrymple tapped me on the arm.

"Madame de Marignan permits me to introduce you, _mon ami_," said he.

"Mr. Basil Arbuthnot--Madame de Marignan."

I bowed profoundly--all the more profoundly because I felt myself blushing to the eyes, and would not for the universe have been suspected of overhearing the preceding conversation; nor was my timidity alleviated when Dalrymple announced his intention of going in search of Madame de Courcelles, and of leaving me in the care of Madame de Marignan.

"Now, Damon, make the most of your opportunities," whispered he, as he pa.s.sed by. "_Vogue la galere_!"

_Vogue la galere_, indeed! As if I had anything to do with the _galere_, except to sit down in it, the most helpless of galley-slaves, and blindly submit to the gyves and chains of Madame de Marignan, who, regarding me as the lawful captive of her bow and spear, carried me off at once to a vacant _causeuse_ in a distant corner.

To send me in search of a footstool, to make me hold her fan, to overwhelm me with questions and bewilder me with a thousand coquetries, were the immediate proceedings of Madame de Marignan. A consummate tactician, she succeeded, before a quarter of an hour had gone by, in putting me at my ease, and in drawing from me everything that I had to tell--all my past; all my prospects for the future; the name and condition of my father; a description of Saxonholme, and the very date of my birth. Then she criticized all the ladies in the room, which only drew my attention more admiringly upon herself; and she quizzed all the young men, whereby I felt indirectly flattered, without exactly knowing why; and she praised Dalrymple in terms for which I could have embraced her on the spot had she been ten times less pretty, and ten times less fascinating.

I was an easy victim, after all, and scarcely worth the powder and shot of an experienced _franc-tireur;_ but Madame de Marignan, according to her own confession, had a taste for civilizing "handsome boys," and as I may, perhaps, have come under that category a good many years ago, the little victory amused her! By the time, at all events, that Dalrymple returned to tell me it was past one o'clock in the morning, and I must be introduced to the mistress of the house before leaving, my head was as completely turned as that of old Time himself.

"Past one!" I exclaimed. "Impossible! We cannot have been here half-an hour."

At which neither Dalrymple nor Madame de Marignan could forbear smiling.

"I hope our acquaintance is not to end here, monsieur," said Madame de Marignan. "I live in the Rue Castellane, and am at home to my friends every Wednesday evening."

I bowed almost to my boots.

"And to my intimates, every morning from twelve to two," she added very softly, with a dimpled smile that went straight to my heart, and set it beating like the paddle-wheels of a steamer.

I stammered some incoherent thanks, bowed again, nearly upset a servant with a tray of ices, and, covered with confusion, followed Dalrymple into the farther room. Here I was introduced to Madame de Courcelles, a pale, aristocratic woman some few years younger than Madame de Marignan, and received a gracious invitation to all her Monday receptions. But I was much less interested in Madame de Courcelles than I should have been a couple of hours before. I scarcely looked at her, and five minutes after I was out of her presence, could not have told whether she was fair or dark, if my life had depended on it!

"What say you to walking home?" said Dalrymple, as we went down stairs.

"It is a superb night, and the fresh air would be delightful after these hot rooms."

I a.s.sented gladly; so we dismissed the cab, and went out, arm-in-arm, along a labyrinth of quiet streets lighted by gas-lamps few and far between, and traversed only by a few homeward-bound pedestrians.

Emerging presently at the back of the Madeleine, we paused for a moment to admire the n.o.ble building by moonlight; then struck across the Marche aux Fleurs and took our way along the Boulevard.

"Are you tired, Damon?" said Dalrymple presently.

"Not in the least," I replied, with my head full of Madame de Marignan.

"Would you like to look in at an artists' club close by here, where I have the _entree?_--queer place enough, but amusing to a stranger."

"Yes, very much."

"Come along, then; but first b.u.t.ton up your overcoat to the throat, and tie this colored scarf round your neck. See, I do the same. Now take off your gloves--that's it. And give your hat the least possible inclination to the left ear. You may turn up the bottoms of your trousers, if you like--anything to look a little slangy."

"Is that necessary?"

"Indispensable--at all events in the honorable society of _Les Chicards."_

"_Les Chicards_!" I repeated. "What are they?"

"It is the name of the club, and means--Heaven only knows what! for Greek or Latin root it has none, and record of it there exists not, unless in the dictionary of Argot. And yet if you were an old Parisian and had matriculated for the last dozen years at the Bal de l'Opera, you would know the ill.u.s.trious Chicard by sight as familiarly as Punch, or Paul Pry, or Pierrot. He is a gravely comic personage with a bandage over one eye, a battered hat considerably inclining to the back of his head, a coat with a high collar and long tails, and a _tout ensemble_ indescribably seedy--something between a street preacher and a travelling showman. But here we are. Take care how you come down, and mind your head."

Having turned aside some few minutes before into the Rue St. Honore, we had thence diverged down a narrow street with a gutter running along the middle and no foot-pavements on either side. The houses seemed to be nearly all shops, some few of which, for the retailing of _charbonnerie_, stale vegetables, uninviting cooked meats, and so forth, were still open; but that before which we halted was closely shuttered up, with only a private door open at the side, lighted by a single oil-lamp. Following my friend for a couple of yards along the dim pa.s.sage within, I became aware of strange sounds, proceeding apparently from the bowels of the earth, and found myself at the head of a steep staircase, down which it was necessary to proceed with my body bent almost double, in consequence of the close proximity of the ceiling and the steps. At the foot of this staircase came another dim pa.s.sage and another oil-lamp over a low door, at which Dalrymple paused a moment before entering. The sounds which I had heard above now resolved themselves into their component parts, consisting of roars of laughter, s.n.a.t.c.hes of songs, clinkings of gla.s.ses, and thumpings of bottles upon tables, to the accompaniment of a deep ba.s.s hum of conversation, all of which prepared me to find a very merry company within.

CHAPTER XIV.

THE HONORABLE SOCIETY OF LES CHICARDS.

"When a set of men find themselves agree in any particular, though never so trivial, they establish themselves into a kind of fraternity, and meet once or twice a week."--_Spectator_.

It was a long, low room lighted by gas, with a table reaching from end to end. Round about this table, in various stages of conviviality and conversation, were seated some thirty or forty men, capped, bearded, and eccentric-looking, with all kinds of queer blouses and wonderful heads of hair. Dropping into a couple of vacant chairs at the lower end of this table, we called for a bottle of Chablis, lit our cigars, and fell in with the general business of the evening. At the top, dimly visible through a dense fog of tobacco smoke, sat a stout man in a green coat fastened by a belt round the waist. He was evidently the President, and, instead of a hammer, had a small bugle lying by his side, which he blew from time to time to enforce silence.

Somewhat perplexed by the general aspect of the club, I turned to my companion for an explanation.