Page:Tales of Three Cities (Boston, James R. Osgood & Co., 1884).djvu/106

94 "Ah, Mr. Caliph, for a man who talks about taste!" I answered.

"Taste be damned!" cried Mr. Caliph, as we went on again.

"That 's quite my idea!" He broke into an unexpected laugh, as if I had said something very amusing, and we proceeded in silence to the top of the hill. Then I suddenly said to him, as we emerged upon the lawn, "Are n't you really a little afraid?"

He stopped again, looking toward the house and at the brilliant groups with which the lawn was covered. We had lost the music, but we began to hear it again. "Afraid? of course I am! I 'm immensely afraid. It comes over me in such a scene as this. But I don't see what good it does you to know."

"It makes me rather happy." That was a fib; for it did n't, somehow, when he looked and talked in that way. He has an absolutely bottomless power of mockery; and really, absurd as it appears, for that instant I had a feeling that it was quite magnanimous of him not to let me know what he thought of my idiotic attempt to frighten him. He feels strong and safe somehow, somewhere; but I can't discover why he should, inasmuch as he certainly does n't know Eunice's secret, and it is only her state of mind that gives him impunity. He believes her to be merely credulous; convinced by his specious arguments that everything will be right in a few months; a little nervous, possibly—to justify my account