The less aristocratic were
even satisfied for the moment with watching the singular being, Reve de
Noir,--who caught no one's eye, seemed to see no one but his master,--and
yet was not here nor there, nor in any place,--never in the way, a thing
of air, and not tangible, but only black.
At a signal, he would advance and present to his master a perfume, a laced
handkerchief, a rose of rubies, a diamond clasp; of many with whom he
spoke the liberal Duke begged the acceptance of some little token, as an
earnest of his esteem. After interchanging a few words with Jeffrey
Lethal,--who dared not utter a sarcasm, though he chafed visibly under the
restraint,--the Duke's tasteful generosity suggested a seal ring, with an
intaglio head of Swift cut in opal, the mineral emblem of wit, which dulls
in the sunlight of fortune, and recovers its fiery points in the shade of
adversity;--Reve de Noir, with a movement so slight, 'twas like the
flitting of a bat, placed the seal in the hand of the Duke, who, with a
charming and irresistible grace, compelled Lethal to receive it.
To Denslow, Honoria, Dalton, and myself he offered nothing.--Strange?--Not
at all. Was he not the guest, and had not I been presented to him by
Honoria as her "friend?"--a word of pregnant meaning to a Duke of
Rosecouleur!
To Adonais he gave _a lock of hair_ of the great novelist, Dumas, in a
locket of yellow tourmaline,--a stone usually black.
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