Page:Braddon--The Trail of the Serpent.djvu/232

228 Quatorze, dancing nothing particular on a blue cloud, are crushed out of all symmetry as she listens to this conversation.

"I was, at the time I knew De Lancy, merely a chorus-singer at the Italian Opera, Paris."

The listeners draw nearer, and form quite a circle round Mosquetti, who is the lion of the night; even Argyle Fitz-Bertram pricks up his ears, and deserts the Duchess in order to hear this conversation.

"A low chorus-singer," he mutters to himself. "So help me, Jupiter, I knew he was a nobody."

"This passion for mimicry," said Mosquetti, "was so great that I acquired a sort of celebrity throughout the Opera House, and even beyond its walls. I could imitate De Lancy better, perhaps, than any one else; for in height, figure, and general appearance I was said to resemble him."

"You do," said the gentleman; "you do very much resemble the poor fellow."

"This resemblance one day gave rise to quite an adventure, which, if I shall not bore you" he glanced round.

There is a general murmur. "Bore us! No! Delighted, enraptured, charmed above all things!" Fitz-Bertram is quite energetic in this omnes business, and says, "No, no!"—muttering to himself afterwards, "So help me, Jupiter, I knew the fellow was a nuisance!"

"But the adventure! Pray let us hear it!" cried eager voices.

"Well, ladies and gentlemen, I was a careless reckless fellow; quite content to put on a pair of russet boots which half swallowed me, and a green cotton-velvet tunic short in the sleeves and tight across the chest, and to go on the stage and sing in a chorus with fifty others, as idle as myself, in other russet boots and cotton-velvet tunics, which, as you know, is the court costume of a chorus-singer from the time of Charlemagne to the reign of Louis XV. I was quite happy, I say, to lounge on to the stage, unknown, unnoticed, badly paid and worse dressed, provided when the chorus was finished I had my cigarette, dominoes, and my glass of cognac in a third-rate café. I was playing one morning at those eternal dominoes—(and never, I think," said Mosquetti, parenthetically, "had a poor fellow so many double-sixes in his hand)—when I was told a gentleman wanted to see me. This seemed too good a joke—a gentleman for me! It couldn't be a limb of the law, as I didn't owe a farthing—no Parisian tradesman being quite so demented as to give me credit. It was a gentleman—a very aristocratic-looking fellow; handsome—but I didn't like his face; affable—and yet I didn't like his manner."

Ah, Valerie! you may well listen now!

"He wanted me, he said," continued Mosquetti, "to decide a