Chamberss Edinburgh Journal, No. 435 | Page 4

little stone, set in twenty shillings worth of gold.
M. Jerome, though not, strictly speaking, a silent man, was sufficiently reserved at table. The early courses were by him always allowed to pass without any further remark than what politeness requires--as: 'Shall I send you some more of this blanquette?' or, 'With pleasure, sir;' and so forth. When dessert-time approached, however, he generally began to unbend, to take part in the general conversation, and throw in here and there a piquant anecdote. He did this with so much grace, that had it not been for the diamond ring, I should have been disposed to consider him as a man of large experience in the best society. The other people who generally attended at table--travellers, commercial and otherwise, with one or two smart folks from the town, on the look-out for Parisian gossip, to retail to the less adventurous members of their circle--were all delighted with M. Jerome: it was M. Jerome here, and M. Jerome there; and if M. Jerome happened to dine out, every one seemed to feel uneasy, and look upon him as guilty of a great dereliction of duty. They could almost as well have done without their demi-tasse.
Although I am an inquisitive, I am not a very impertinent man. I like to pry into other people's affairs only in so far as I can do so without hurting their feelings, or putting my own self-love in danger of a check. If, therefore, I gave the reins to my curiosity, and devoted myself to studying the more apparent movements of this M. Jerome, I shrank from putting any direct questions to the gar?on, who might probably at once have given me a very prosaic account of him. On one occasion, I threw in casually a remark, to the effect that the gentleman at No. 49 seemed a great favourite with the fair sex; but the only reply was a smile, and an acknowledgment that, in general, people of fascinating exterior--here the gar?on glanced at the mirror he was dusting--were great favourites with the fairer portion of the creation. 'We Frenchmen,' it was added, 'know the way to the female heart better than most men.' The waiter had paused with his duster in his hand. I felt that he was going to give me his Art of Love; and opportunely remembering that I had a letter to put into the post, I escaped the infliction for the time.
I had, indeed, observed that if the public generally admitted the valuable qualities of M. Jerome as a companion, his reputation was based principally on the approval of the ladies. All these excellent judges agreed that he was a nice, quiet, agreeable person; and 'so handsome!' At least the seven members of an English family, who had come to visit Chambord, and lingered at the hotel a week--five of them were daughters--all expressed this opinion of M. Jerome; and even a supercilious French lady, with a particle attached to her name, admitted that he was 'very well.'
One day, a new face appeared at table to interest me; and as the mysterious gentleman and his diamond ring had puzzled me for a fortnight, during which I had made no progress towards ascertaining his real position and character, I was not sorry to have my attention a little diverted by a mysterious lady. Madame de Mourairef--a Russian name, thought I--was a very agreeable person to look at; much more so to me than M. Jerome. She was not much past twenty years of age; small, slight, elegant in shape, if not completely so in manners; and with one of those charming little faces which you can analyse into ugliness, but which in their synthesis, to speak as moderns should, are admirable, adorable, fascinating. I should have thought that such a minois could belong only to Paris--the city, by the way, of ugly women, whom art makes charming. However, there it was above the shoulders, high of course--swan-necked women are only found in England--above the shoulders of a Russian marchioness, princess, czarina, or what you will, who called for her cigarettes after dinner, was attended by a little soubrette, named Penelope, and looked for all the world as if she had just been whirled off the boards of the Opera Comique.
I at first believed that this was a mere mascarade; but when a letter in a formidable envelope, with the seal of the Russian embassy, arrived, and was exhibited in the absence of the lady herself, to every one of the lodgers, in proof of the aristocratic character of the customer of the T��te Noire, I began to doubt my own perspicacity, and to imagine that I had now a far more interesting object of study than M. Jerome and his diamond ring. Madame de