“Then you are Laginski’s friend?” asked the lady.
“For life and death,” replied Paz, on whom the young Count shed his most affectionate smile, as he exhaled his last fragrant puff of smoke.
“Well, then, why do you not eat with us? Why did you not accompany us to Italy and to Switzerland? Why do you hide yourself so as to avoid the thanks I owe you for the constant services you do us?” said the young Countess, with a sort of irritation, but without the slightest feeling.
In fact, she detected a kind of volunteer slavery on the part of Paz. At that time such an idea was inseparable from a certain disdain for a socially amphibious creature, a being at once secretary and bailiff, neither wholly bailiff nor wholly secretary, some poor relation—inconvenient as a friend.
“The fact is, Countess,” he replied with some freedom, “that no thanks are owing to me. I am Adam’s friend, and I find my pleasure in taking charge of his interests.”
“And is it for your pleasure too that you remain standing?” said Count Adam.
Paz sat down in an armchair near the doorway.
“I remember having seen you on the occasion of our marriage, and sometimes in the courtyard,” said the lady; “but why do you, a friend of Adam’s, place yourself in a position of inferiority?”
“The opinion of the Paris world is to me a matter of indifference,” said he. “I live for myself, or, if you choose, for you two.”
“But the opinion of the world as regards my husband’s friend cannot be a matter of indifference to me—”
“Oh, madame, the world is easily satisfied by one word: Eccentric—say that.”
After a short pause he asked, “Do you purpose going out?”
“Will you come to the Bois?” said the Countess.
“With pleasure,” and so saying Paz bowed and went out.
“What a good soul! He is as simple as a child,” said Adam.
“Tell me now how you became friends,” said Clémentine.
“Paz, my dearest, is of a family as old, as noble, and as illustrious as our own. At the time of the fall of the Pazzi a member of that family escaped from Florence into Poland, where he settled with some little fortune, and founded the family of the Paz, on which the title of count was conferred.
“This family, having distinguished itself in the days of our royal republic, grew rich. The cutting from the tree felled in Italy grew with such vigor that there are several branches of the house of the Counts Paz. It will not, therefore, surprise you to be told that there are rich and poor members of the family. Our Paz is the son of a poor branch. As an orphan, with no fortune but his sword, he served under the Grand Duke Constantine at the time of our Revolution. Carried away by the Polish party, he fought like a Pole, like a patriot, like a man who has nothing—three reasons for fighting well. In the last skirmish, believing his men were following him, he rushed on a Russian battery, and was taken prisoner. I was there. This feat of courage roused my blood. ‘Let us go and fetch him!’ cried I to my horsemen. We charged the battery like freebooters, and I rescued Paz, I being the seventh. We were twenty when we set out, and eight when we came back, including Paz.
“When Warsaw was betrayed we had to think of escaping from the Russians. By a singular chance Paz and I found ourselves together at the same hour and in the same place on the other side of the Vistula. I saw the poor Captain arrested by some Prussians, who at that time had made themselves bloodhounds for the Russians. When one has fished a man out of the Styx, one gets attached to him. This new danger threatening Paz distressed me so much that I allowed myself to be taken with him, intending to be of service to him. Two men can sometimes escape when one alone is lost. Thanks to my name and some family connection with those on whom our fate depended—for we were then in the power of the Prussians—my flight was winked at. I got my dear Captain through as a common soldier and a servant of my house, and we succeeded in reaching Danzig. We stowed ourselves in a Dutch vessel sailing for England, where we landed two months later.
“My mother had fallen ill in England, and awaited me there; Paz and I nursed her till her death, which was accelerated by the disasters to our cause.
“We then left England, and I brought Paz to France; in such adversities two men become brothers. When I found myself in Paris with sixty odd thousand francs a year, not to mention the remains of a sum derived from the sale of my mother’s diamonds and the family pictures, I wished to secure a living to Paz before giving myself up to the dissipations of Paris life. I had discerned some sadness in the Captain’s eyes, sometimes even a suppressed tear floated there. I had had opportunities of appreciating his soul, which is thoroughly noble, lofty, and generous. Perhaps it was painful to him to find himself bound by benefits to a man six years younger than himself without being able to repay him. I, careless and lighthearted as a boy, might ruin myself at play, or let myself be ensnared by some woman; Paz and I might some day be sundered. Though I promised myself that I would always provide for all his needs, I foresaw many chances of forgetting, or being unable to pay Paz an allowance. In short, my angel, I wished to spare him the discomfort, the humiliation, the shame of having to ask me for money, or of seeking in vain for his comrade in some day of necessity. Dunque, one morning after breakfast, with our feet on the firedogs, each smoking his pipe, after many blushes, and with many precautions, till I saw
