The outcome of the first
enterprise, on which I had founded all my hopes, and which came to
a bad end in consequence of the utter rascality of my two
partners, who combined to cheat and fleece me--me, though
everything was done by my energy--made me give up the pursuit of a
fortune after the loss of three years of my life. One of these
years was spent in the law courts, and perhaps I should have come
worse out of the scrape if I had not been made to study law when I
was twenty.
"I made up my mind to go into politics solely, to the end that I
may some day find my name on a list for promotion to the Senate
under the title of Comte Albert Savaron de Savarus, and so revive
in France a good name now extinct in Belgium--though indeed I am
neither legitimate nor legitimized."
"Ah! I knew it! He is of noble birth!" exclaimed Rosalie, dropping the
letter.
"You know how conscientiously I studied, how faithful and useful I
was as an obscure journalist, and how excellent a secretary to the
statesman who, on his part, was true to me in 1829. Flung to the
depths once more by the revolution of July just when my name was
becoming known, at the very moment when, as Master of Appeals, I
was about to find my place as a necessary wheel in the political
machine, I committed the blunder of remaining faithful to the
fallen, and fighting for them, without them. Oh! why was I but
three-and-thirty, and why did I not apply to you to make me
eligible? I concealed from you all my devotedness and my dangers.
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