Vassall Morton Part 26

CHAPTER x.x.xI.

Though I do hate him as I do h.e.l.l pains, I must throw out a flag and sign of love.--_Oth.e.l.lo_.

That day Vinal drove to the Quartier Latin, called upon his friend Richards, and asked him to dine at the Trois Freres Provencaux. Mr.

Richards was never known to decline such an invitation.

To the Trois Freres accordingly they repaired. Richards, whose social position at home was much inferior to that of his entertainer, thought the latter a capital fellow; especially when Vinal flattered him by deferring to his better taste and experience in the ordering of the dinner. But when, after nightfall, they issued forth again upon the open area of the Palais Royal, the delicate Vinal shivered with the cold. A chill wind and a dreary rain had set in, and Vinal, always cautious in such matters, said that before proceeding on their evening's amus.e.m.e.nts, he would go to Meurice's and get an overcoat.

The overcoat being found, Vinal, b.u.t.toned to the chin, came down the stairway, and rejoined Richards.

Morton had just before sent a servant for a carriage, to drive to the opera, and was waiting wrapped in his cloak, on the steps outside the door.

"What shall our first move be?" asked Richards of Vinal, as they pa.s.sed out.

"Whatever you like."

"You had better give the word."

"Then suppose we go and see your friend, the professor."

"Who the deuse is Richards's friend, the professor?" thought Morton, as the others pa.s.sed without observing him.

"The professor" was a cant term for Mr. Henry Speyer.

Speyer lived in an obscure part of the Latin quarter; and Richards, who was vain of his intimacy with this scoundrel, as indicating how deeply he was versed in Paris life, approached his lodging with much circ.u.mspection, by dim and devious routes.

"My name is Wilton, and I hail from New Orleans," said Vinal, as they reached the patriot's threshold.

As Mr. Wilton, of New Orleans, then, Vinal became known to Mr. Henry Speyer. The latter's quarters were any thing but commodious or attractive; and Richards invited him to a _pet.i.t souper_ at his own lodgings, which were not very remote. Leaving Speyer to make his own way thither, he proceeded to summon two additional guests, in the persons of two friends of his own, his favorite partners at the Chaumiere. With the aid of wine and cigars, the party became, in time, very animated. Vinal, who had a quick and pungent wit, drew upon himself much applause, and Speyer regarded him with especial commendation. But while he played his part thus successfully, he was studying his companions, as a scholar studies a book; studiously keeping himself cool; sipping a few drops of his wine, and slyly spilling the rest under the table, while he did his best to stimulate the others, and especially Speyer, to drink. Speyer drank, indeed, but the wine seemed to produce no more effect on him than water. He remained as cool as Vinal himself. The latter, young as he was, was a close and penetrating judge of men; and when, at two o'clock in the morning, he returned to his hotel, he carried with him the conviction that, in his present beggared condition, a few hundred francs would bribe the patriot to commit any moderately safe villany.

The evening, however, had had one result which Vinal regretted. Mr.

Richards, being obfuscated with champagne, had repeatedly called him by his true name; so that Speyer was fully aware that his new acquaintance was not Mr. Wilton, of New Orleans, but Mr. Horace Vinal, of Boston.

CHAPTER x.x.xII.

And, far the blackest there, the traitor friend.--_Dryden_.

Several days had pa.s.sed, during which Vinal contrived to have more than one private interview with his new acquaintance, Speyer. He had sounded him with much astuteness; found that he could serve him; and was confirmed in his a.s.surance that he would.

Morton, he knew, was to leave Paris on the next morning. The time to act was now, or never.

At about three in the afternoon, he discovered his rival sauntering along an avenue in the garden of the Tuileries; and walking up behind, he joined him.

"There are some of us," said Vinal, after a few moments' conversation, "going to Versailles to-morrow. Will you go?"

"I mean to leave Paris to-morrow."

"To-morrow! That's very sudden."

"I shall come back again in a few months."

"Your first move is to Italy, I think you said."

"No, to Austria and the Danube."

"O, I remember; it is West who is going to Italy. I think he has chosen the better route of the two."

"Yes, as far as history and works of art are concerned. But the Austrian provinces are the best field for me. I am mounted on a hobby, you know, and my time is so short that I must make the most of what I have."

"You wish to see the people--the different races--is that it?"

"Yes."

"You ought to be well booked up before you go, or you'll lose time. By the way, I made an acquaintance a little while ago in the diligence from Strasburg--a very agreeable man, a professor at Berlin----"

"O, the professor whom you and Richards were going to see, the other night."

A thrill shot through Vinal's nerves; but the unsuspecting Morton almost instantly relieved his terror.

"I was standing on the steps as you went out, and heard you say that you were going to visit him. From the way in which you spoke, I imagined him to be some professor of the n.o.ble art of self-defence."

"Ha, ha!" laughed Vinal, not quite recovered from his surprise; "no, not precisely that; Speyer is a philologist--that's his department."

"And Richards knows him, too?"

"Yes, through my introduction."

"From your calling him 'his friend, the professor,' I imagined that the acquaintance began the other way."

"Yes, his friend, with a vengeance. Confound the fellow, as I was walking with him the other day, we met Speyer, and I, thinking no harm, introduced them; but it wasn't twenty-four hours before Richards was at him to borrow money, which Speyer let him have. I dare say Richards has bled you as well."

"No."

"No? Then you are luckier than I am. I advise you to keep out of his way, or he'll pin you before you know it."

"I should judge as much."

"I spoke of Professor Speyer because he was born in some outlandish corner of the Austrian empire,--Croatia, I think he told me,--and had his head full of political soap bubbles founded on the distribution of races in that part of the world. He put me to sleep half a dozen times with talking about Pansclavism and the manifest destinies of the Sclavic peoples. He is the very man for you; and I am sorry I didn't think of it before."

"Well," said Morton, "I must blunder through as I can."