My toilet concluded, I marched on to fresh surprises.  My chamber, my new valet and my new clothes had been beyond hope:  the dinner, the soup, the whole bill of fare was a revelation of the powers there are in man.  I had not supposed it lay in the genius of any cook to create, out of common beef and mutton, things so different and dainty.  The wine was of a piece, the doctor a most agreeable companion; nor could I help reflecting on the prospect that all this wealth, comfort and handsome profusion might still very possibly become mine.  Here were a change indeed, from the common soldier and the camp kettle, the prisoner and his prison rations, the fugitive and the horrors of the covered cart!

CHAPTER XVII—­THE DESPATCH-BOX

The doctor had scarce finished his meal before he hastened with an apology to attend upon his patient; and almost immediately after I was myself summoned and ushered up the great staircase and along interminable corridors to the bedside of my great-uncle the Count.  You are to think that up to the present moment I had not set eyes on this formidable personage, only on the evidences of his wealth and kindness.  You are to think besides that I had heard him miscalled and abused from my earliest childhood up.  The first of the emigres could never expect a good word in the society in which my father moved.  Even yet the reports I received were of a doubtful nature; even Romaine had drawn of him no very amiable portrait; and as I was ushered into the room, it was a critical eye that I cast on my great-uncle.  He lay propped on pillows in a little cot no greater than a camp-bed, not visibly breathing.  He was about eighty years of age, and looked it; not that his face was much lined, but all the blood and colour seemed to have faded from his body, and even his eyes, which last he kept usually closed as though the light distressed him.  There was an unspeakable degree of slyness in his expression, which kept me ill at ease; he seemed to lie there with his arms folded, like a spider waiting for prey.  His speech was very deliberate and courteous, but scarce louder than a sigh.

‘I bid you welcome, Monsieur le Vicomte Anne,’ said he, looking at me hard with his pale eyes, but not moving on his pillows.  ’I have sent for you, and I thank you for the obliging expedition you have shown.  It is my misfortune that I cannot rise to receive you.  I trust you have been reasonably well entertained?’

‘Monsieur mon oncle,’ I said, bowing very low, ’I am come at the summons of the head of my family.’

‘It is well,’ he said.  ’Be seated.  I should be glad to hear some news—­if that can be called news that is already twenty years old—­ of how I have the pleasure to see you here.’

By the coldness of his address, not more than by the nature of the times that he bade me recall, I was plunged in melancholy.  I felt myself surrounded as with deserts of friendlessness, and the delight of my welcome was turned to ashes in my mouth.