'I have seen your national character running away at least, and had the honour to run after it!' rose to my lips, but I was not so ill advised as to give it utterance.Every one should be flattered, but boys and women without stint; and I put in the rest of the afternoon narrating to him tales of British heroism, for which I should not like to engage that they were all true.
'I am quite surprised,' he said at last.'People tell you the French are insincere.Now, I think your sincerity is beautiful.I think you have a noble character.I admire you very much.I am very grateful for your kindness to - to one so young,' and he offered me his hand.
'I shall see you again soon?' said I.
'Oh, now! Yes, very soon,' said he.'I - I wish to tell you.I would not let Flora - Miss Gilchrist, I mean - come to-day.I wished to see more of you myself.I trust you are not offended:
you know, one should be careful about strangers.'
I approved his caution, and he took himself away: leaving me in a mixture of contrarious feelings, part ashamed to have played on one so gullible, part raging that I should have burned so much incense before the vanity of England; yet, in the bottom of my soul, delighted to think I had made a friend - or, at least, begun to make a friend - of Flora's brother.
As I had half expected, both made their appearance the next day.I struck so fine a shade betwixt the pride that is allowed to soldiers and the sorrowful humility that befits a captive, that I declare, as I went to meet them, I might have afforded a subject for a painter.So much was high comedy, I must confess; but so soon as my eyes lighted full on her dark face and eloquent eyes, the blood leaped into my cheeks - and that was nature! I thanked them, but not the least with exultation; it was my cue to be mournful, and to take the pair of them as one.
'I have been thinking,' I said, 'you have been so good to me, both of you, stranger and prisoner as I am, that I have been thinking how I could testify to my gratitude.It may seem a strange subject for a confidence, but there is actually no one here, even of my comrades, that knows me by my name and title.By these I am called plain Champdivers, a name to which I have a right, but not the name which I should bear, and which (but a little while ago) I must hide like a crime.Miss Flora, suffer me to present to you the Vicomte Anne de Keroual de Saint-Yves, a private soldier.'
'I knew it!' cried the boy; 'I knew he was a noble!'
And I thought the eyes of Miss Flora said the same, but more persuasively.All through this interview she kept them on the ground, or only gave them to me for a moment at a time, and with a serious sweetness.
'You may conceive, my friends, that this is rather a painful confession,' I continued.'To stand here before you, vanquished, a prisoner in a fortress, and take my own name upon my lips, is painful to the proud.And yet I wished that you should know me.
Long after this, we may yet hear of one another - perhaps Mr.
Gilchrist and myself in the field and from opposing camps - and it would be a pity if we heard and did not recognise.'
They were both moved; and began at once to press upon me offers of service, such as to lend me books, get me tobacco if I used it, and the like.This would have been all mighty welcome, before the tunnel was ready.Now it signified no more to me than to offer the transition I required.