With mirrors reflecting a myriad lights, with the hum of voices, the rustle of satin and lace, the hurrying steps of waiters, the bubbling of laughter, of life, and of wine—all these on each side of them, and a plate, a foaming glass, and a friend in front, the Baron and his host smiled radiantly down upon less favored mortals.
“Tulliwuddle is very late,” said Essington; “but he's a devilish casual gentleman in all matters.”
“I am selfish enoff to hope he vill not gom at all!” exclaimed the Baron.
“Unfortunately he has had the doubtful taste to conceive a curiously high opinion of myself. I am afraid he won't desert us. But I don't propose that we shall suffer for his slackness. Bring the fish, waiter.”
The Baron was happy; and that is to say that his laughter re-echoed from the shining mirrors, his tongue was loosed, his heart expanded, his glass seemed ever empty.
“Ach, how to make zis joie de vivre to last beyond to-night!” he cried. “May ze Teufel fly off mit of offeecial duties and receptions and—and even mit my vife for a few days.”
“My dear Baron!”
“To Alicia!” cried the Baron hastily, draining his glass at the toast. “But some fun first!”
“'I could not love thee, dear, so well,
Loved I not humor more!'”
misquoted his host gaily. “Ah!” he added, “here comes Tulliwuddle.”
A young man, with his hands in his pockets and an eyeglass in his eye, strolled up to their table.
“I'm beastly sorry for being so late,” said he; “but I'm hanged if I could make up my mind whether to risk wearing one of these frilled shirt-fronts. It's not bad, I think, with one's tie tied this way. What do you say?”
“It suits you like a halo,” Essington assured him. “But let me introduce you to my friend the Baron Rudolph von Blitzenberg.”
Lord Tulliwuddle bowed politely and took the empty chair; but it was evident that his attention could not concentrate itself upon sublunary matters till the shirt-front had been critically inspected and appreciatively praised by his host. Indeed, it was quite clear that Essington had not exaggerated his regard for himself. This admiration was perhaps the most pleasing feature to be noted on a brief acquaintance with his lordship. He was obviously intended neither for a strong man of action nor a great man of thought. A tolerable appearance and considerable amiability he might no doubt claim; but unfortunately the effort to retain his eye-glass had apparently the effect of forcing his mouth chronically open, which somewhat marred his appearance; while his natural good-humor lapsed too frequently into the lamentations of an idle man that Providence neglected him or that his creditors were too attentive.
It happens, however, that it is rather his circumstances than his person which concern this history. And, briefly, these were something in this sort. Born a poor relation and guided by no strong hand, he had gradually seen himself, as Reverend uncles and Right Honorable cousins died off, approach nearer and nearer to the ancient barony of Tulliwuddle (created 1475 in the peerage of Scotland), until this year he had actually succeeded to it. But after his first delight in this piece of good fortune had subsided he began to realize in himself two notable deficiencies very clearly, the lack of money, and more vaguely, the want of any preparation for filling the shoes of a stately courtier and famous Highland chieftain. He would often, and with considerable feeling, declare that any ordinary peer he could easily have become, but that being old Tulliwuddle's heir, by Gad! he didn't half like the job.
At present he was being tolerated or befriended by a small circle of acquaintances, and rapidly becoming a familiar figure to three or four tailors and half a dozen door-keepers at the stage entrances to divers Metropolitan theatres. In the circle of acquaintances, the humorous sagacity of Essington struck him as the most astonishing thing he had ever known. He felt, in fact, much like a village youth watching his first conjuring performance, and while the whim lasted (a period which Essington put down as probably six weeks) he would have gone the length of paying a bill or ordering a tie on his recommendation alone.
To-night the distinguished appearance and genial conversation of Essington's friend impressed him more than ever with the advantages of knowing so remarkable a personage. A second bottle succeeded the first, and a third the second, the cordiality of the dinner growing all the while, till at last his lordship had laid aside the last traces of his national suspicion of even the most charming strangers.
“I say, Essington,” he said, “I had meant to tell you about a devilish delicate dilemma I'm in. I want your advice.”
“You have it,” interrupted his host. “Give her a five-pound note, see that she burns your letters, and introduce her to another fellow.”
“But—er—that wasn't the thing——”
“Tell him you'll pay in six months, and order another pair of trousers,” said Essington, briskly as ever.
“But, I say, it wasn't that——”
“My dear Tulliwuddle, I never give racing tips.”
“Hang it!”
“What is the matter?”
Tulliwuddle glanced at the Baron.
“I don't know whether the Baron would be interested——”
“Immensely, my goot Tollyvoddle! Supremely! hugely! I could be interested to-night in a museum!”
“The Baron's past life makes him a peculiarly catholic judge of indiscretions,” said Essington.
Thus reassured, Tulliwuddle began—
“You know I've an aunt who takes an interest in me—wants me to collar an heiress and that sort of thing. Well, she has more or less arranged a marriage for me.”
“Fill your glasses, gentlemen!” cried Essington.
“Hoch, hoch!” roared the Baron.
“But, I say, wait a minute! That's only the beginning. I don't know the girl—and she doesn't know me.”
He said the last words in a peculiarly significant tone.
“Do you wish me to introduce you?”
“Oh, hang it! Be serious, Essington. The point is—will she marry me if she does know me?”
“Himmel! Yes, certainly!” cried the Baron.
“Who is she?” asked their host, more seriously.
“Her father is Darius P. Maddison, the American Silver King.”
The other two could not withhold an exclamation.
“He has only two children, a son and a daughter, and he wants to marry his daughter to an English peer—or a Scotch, it's all the same. My aunt knows 'em pretty well, and she has recommended me.”
“An excellent selection,” commented his host.
“But the trouble is, they want rather a high-class peer. Old Maddison is deuced particular, and I believe the girl is even worse.”
“What are the qualifications desired?”
“Oh, he's got to be ambitious, and a promising young man—and elevated tastes—and all that kind of nonsense.”
“But you can be all zat if you try!” said the Baron eagerly. “Go to Germany and get trained. I did vork twelve hours a day for ten years to be vat I am.”
“I'm different,” replied the young peer gloomily. “Nobody ever trained me. Old Tulliwuddle might have taken me up if he had liked, but he was prejudiced against me. I can't become all those things now.”
“And yet you do want to marry the lady?”
“My dear Essington, I can't afford to lose such a chance! One doesn't get a Miss Maddison every day. She's a deuced handsome girl too, they say.”
“By Gad, it's worth a trip across the Atlantic to try your luck,” said Essington. “Get 'em to guarantee your expenses and you'll at least learn to play poker and see Niagara for nothing.”
“They aren't in America. They've got a salmon river in Scotland, and they are there now. It's not far from my place, Hechnahoul.”
“She's practically in your arms, then?”
“Ach. Ze affair is easy!”
“Pipe up the clan and abduct her!”
“Approach her mit a kilt!”
But even those optimistic exhortations left the peer still melancholy.
“It sounds all very well,” said he, “but my clansmen, as you call 'em, would expect such a devil of a lot from me too. Old Tulliwuddle spoiled them for any ordinary mortal. He went about looking like an advertisement for whisky, and called 'em all by their beastly Gaelic names. I have never been in Scotland in my life, and I can't do that sort of thing. I'd merely make a fool of myself. If I'd had to go to America it wouldn't have been so bad.”
At this weak-kneed confession the Baron could hardly withhold an exclamation of contempt, but Essington, with more sympathy, inquired—
“What do you propose to do, then?”
His lordship emptied his glass.
“I wish I had your brains and your way of carrying things off, Essington!” he said, with a sigh. “If you got a chance of showing yourself off to Miss Maddison she'd jump at you!”
A gleam, inspired and humorous, leaped into Essington's eyes. The Baron, whose glance happened at the moment to fall on him, bounded gleefully from his seat.
“Hoch!” he cried, “it is mine old Bonker zat I see before me! Vat have you in your mind?”
“Sit down, my dear Baron; that lady over there thinks you are preparing to attack her. Shall we smoke? Try these cigars.”
Throwing the Baron a shrewd glance to calm his somewhat alarming exhilaration, their host turned with a graver air to his other guest.
“Tulliwuddle,” said he, “I should like to help you.”
“I wish to the deuce you could!”
Essington bent over the table confidentially.
“I have an idea.”
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