``Messieurs,'' said Monsieur de St.Gre, turning to us, ``dinner will soon be ready--if you will be so good as to pardon me until then.''
Nick followed Mademoiselle with his eyes until she had disappeared beyond the hall.She did not so much as turn.Then he took me by the arm and led me to a bench under a magnolia a little distance away, where he seated himself, and looked up at me despairingly.
``Behold,'' said he, ``what was once your friend and cousin, your counsellor, sage, and guardian.Behold the clay which conducted you hither, with the heart neatly but painfully extracted.Look upon a woman's work, Davy, and shun the sex.I tell you it is better to go blindfold through life, to have--pardon me--your own blunt features, than to be reduced to such a pitiable state.
Was ever such a refinement of cruelty practised before?
Never! Was there ever such beauty, such archness, such coquetry,--such damned elusiveness? Never! If there is a cargo going up the river, let me be salted and lie at the bottom of it.I'll warrant you I'll not come to life.''
``You appear to have suffered somewhat,'' I said, forgetting for the moment in my laughter the thing that weighed upon my mind.
``Suffered!'' he cried; ``I have been tossed high in the azure that I might sink the farther into the depths.Ihave been put in a grave, the earth stamped down, resurrected, and flung into the dust-heap.I have been taken up to the gate of heaven and dropped a hundred and fifty years through darkness.Since I have seen you I have been the round of all the bright places and all the bottomless pits in the firmament.''
``It seems to have made you literary,'' I remarked judicially.