Norse Tales and Sketches | Page 2

her many specialties was the ability to
immediately 'assort' all the foreigners with whom she mingled, and she
used to declare that she could guess a man's nationality as soon as she
had spoken ten words with him.
But this taciturn stranger caused her much perplexed cogitation. If he
had only been fair-haired, she would at once have set him down as an
Englishman, for he talked like one. But he had dark hair, a thick black
moustache, and a nice little figure. His fingers were remarkably long,
and he had a peculiar way of trifling with his bread and playing with
his dessert-fork.
'He is a musician,' whispered Mademoiselle Adèle to her stout friend.
'Ah!' replied Monsieur Anatole. 'I am afraid I have eaten too many
truffles.'
Mademoiselle Adèle whispered in his ear some words of good counsel,
upon which he laughed and looked very affectionate.
However, she could not relinquish her hold of the interesting foreigner.
After she had coaxed him to drink several glasses of champagne, he
became livelier, and talked more.
'Ah!' cried she suddenly; 'I hear it in your speech. You are an
Englishman!'
The stranger grew quite red in the face, and answered quickly, 'No,
madame.'
Mademoiselle Adèle laughed. 'I beg your pardon. I know that
Americans feel angry when they are taken for Englishmen.'
'Neither am I an American,' replied the stranger.
This was too much for Mademoiselle Adèle. She bent over her plate
and looked sulky, for she saw that Mademoiselle Louison opposite was
enjoying her defeat.
The foreign gentleman understood the situation, and added, half aloud:
'I am an Irishman, madame.'
'Ah!' said Mademoiselle Adèle, with a grateful smile, for she was easily
reconciled.
'Anatole! Irishman--what is that?' she asked in a whisper.
'The poor of England,' he whispered back.
'Indeed!'
Adèle elevated her eyebrows, and cast a shrinking, timid glance at the

stranger. She had suddenly lost much of her interest in him.
De Silvis's dinners were excellent. The party had sat long at table, and
when Monsieur Anatole thought of the oysters with which the feast had
begun, they appeared to him like a beautiful dream. On the contrary, he
had a somewhat too lively recollection of the truffles.
Dinner was over; hands were reaching out for glasses, or trifling with
fruit or biscuits.
That sentimental blonde, Mademoiselle Louison, fell into meditation
over a grape that she had dropped in her champagne glass. Tiny bright
air-bubbles gathered all round the coating of the fruit, and when it was
quite covered with these shining white pearls, they lifted the heavy
grape up through the wine to the surface.
'Look!' said Mademoiselle Louison, turning her large, swimming eyes
upon the journalist, 'look, white angels are bearing a sinner to heaven!'
'Ah! charmant, mademoiselle! What a sublime thought!' exclaimed the
journalist, enraptured.
Mademoiselle Louison's sublime thought passed round the table, and
was much admired. Only the frivolous Adèle whispered to her obese
admirer, 'It would take a good many angels to bear you, Anatole.'
Meanwhile the journalist seized the opportunity; he knew how to rivet
the general attention. Besides, he was glad to escape from a tiresome
political controversy with the German; and, as he wore a red ribbon and
affected the superior journalistic tone, everybody listened to him.
He explained how small forces, when united, can lift great burdens; and
then he entered upon the topic of the day--the magnificent collections
made by the press for the sufferers by the floods in Spain, and for the
poor of Paris. Concerning this he had much to relate, and every
moment he said 'we,' alluding to the press. He talked himself quite
warm about 'these millions, that we, with such great self-sacrifice, have
raised.'
But each of the others had his own story to tell. Numberless little
touches of nobility--all savouring of self-denial--came to light from
amidst these days of luxury and pleasure.
Mademoiselle Louison's best friend--an insignificant little lady who sat
at the foot of the table--told, in spite, of Louison's protest, how the
latter had taken three poor seamstresses up to her own rooms, and had
them sew the whole of the night before the _fête_ in the hippodrome.

She had given the poor girls coffee and food, besides payment.
Mademoiselle Louison suddenly became an important personage at
table, and the journalist began to show her marked attention.
The many pretty instances of philanthropy, and Louison's swimming
eyes, put the whole company into a quiet, tranquil, benevolent frame of
mind, eminently in keeping with the weariness induced by the exertions
of the feast. And this comfortable feeling rose yet a few degrees higher
after the guests were settled in soft easy-chairs in the cool
drawing-room.
There was no other light than the fire in the grate. Its red glimmer crept
over the English