There
was still something agreeable to the nostrils about him and
something not offensive to nobler organs. He was a very gentle and
gracious youth, with what are called cultivated tastes- an
acquaintance with old china, with good wine, with the bindings of
books, with the Almanach de Gotha, with the best shops, the best
hotels, the hours of railway-trains. He could order a dinner almost as
well as Mr. Luce, and it was probable that as his experience
accumulated he would be a worthy successor to that gentleman, whose
rather grim politics he also advocated in a soft and innocent voice.
He had some charming rooms in Paris, decorated with old Spanish
altar-lace, the envy of his female friends, who declared that his
chimney-piece was better draped than the high shoulders of many a
duchess. He usually, however, spent a part of every winter at Pau, and
had once passed a couple of months in the United States.
He took a great interest in Isabel and remembered perfectly the walk
at Neufchatel, when she would persist in going so near the edge. He
seemed to recognize this same tendency in the subversive enquiry
that I quoted a moment ago, and set himself to answer our heroine's
question with greater urbanity than it perhaps deserved.
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