'It was because I recognised your voice I ventured to address you; you were a Garde du Corps once?'
'I was once upon a time the Viscount Alfred de Noe,' said the other lightly. 'It was a part my ancestors performed for some seven or eight centuries. Now I change my _rôle_ every night.'
Through all the levity of this remark there was also what savoured of courage, that bold defiance of the turns of fortune which sounded haughtily.
'I, too, have had my reverses; but not so great as yours,' said Gerald modestly.
'When a man is killed by a fall, what signifies it if the drop has been fifty feet or five hundred! _Mon cher_,' said the other, 'you and I were once gentlemen--we talked, ate, drank, and dressed as such; we have now the _canaille_ life, and the past is scarcely even a dream.'
'It is the present I would call a dream,' said Gerald.
'I 'd do so too if its cursed reality would let me,' said De Noe, laughing, 'or if I could throw off the cast of shop for one brief hour, and feel myself the man I once was.'
'What are you counting? Have you lost anything?' asked Gerald, as the other turned over some pieces of money in his hand, and then hastily searched pocket after pocket.
'No; I was just seeing if I had wherewithal to ask you to sup with me, and I find that I have.'
'Rather, come and share mine--I live here,' said Gerald, as he pushed a door which lay ajar. 'It's a very humble meal I invite you to partake of; but we 'll drink to the good time coming.'
'I accept frankly,' said the other, as he followed Gerald up the dark and narrow stairs.
'A bed and a looking-glass, as I live!' exclaimed De Noe, as he entered the room. 'What a sybarite! Why, my friend, you outrage the noble precepts of our glorious Revolution by these luxurious pretensions--you insult equality and fraternity together.'
'Let me at least conciliate liberty then,' said Gerald gaily, 'and ask you to feel yourself at home.'
'How am I to call thee, _mon cher?_' said De Noe, assuming the familiar second person, which I beg the reader to supply in the remainder of the interview.
'Le Chevalier Fitzgerald was just becoming a celebrity when they changed the spectacle. Ah, what a splendid engagement we all had, if we only knew how to keep it!'