And this was not lessened by the bitter reproaches I made myself for being such a selfish and unworthy son and brother. It was precious dull at home for my mother and sister--and my place was _there_. They were just lighting the lamps as I got to the arcade in the Quadrant--and there I ran against the cheerful Barty. Joy! what a change in the aspect of everything! It rained light! He pulled a new book out of his pocket, which he had just borrowed from some fair lady--and showed it to me. It was called _Maud_. We dined at Pergolese's, in Rupert Street--and went back to Barty's--and read the lovely poem out loud, taking it by turns; and that is the most delightful recollection I have since I left the Institution F. Brossard! Occasionally I dined with him "on guard" at St. James's Palace--and well I could understand all the attractions of his life, so different from mine, and see what a good fellow he was to come so often to Brunswick Square, and seem so happy with us. The reader will conclude that I was a kind of over-affectionate pestering dull dog, who made this brilliant youth's life a burden to him. It was really not so; we had very many tastes in common; and with all his various temptations, he had a singularly constant and affectionate nature--and was of a Frenchness that made French thought and talk and commune almost a daily necessity. We nearly always spoke French when together alone, or with my mother and sister. It would have seemed almost unnatural not to have done so. I always feel a special tenderness towards young people whose lives have been such that those two languages are exactly the same to them. It means so many things to me. It doubles them in my estimation, and I seem to understand them through and through. Nor did he seem to care much for the smart society of which he saw so much; perhaps the bar sinister may have made him feel less at his ease in general society than among his intimates and old friends. I feel sure he took this to heart more than any one would have thought possible from his careless manner. He only once alluded directly to this when we were together. I was speaking to him of the enviable brilliancy of his lot. He looked at me pensively for a minute or two, and said, in English: "You've got a kink in your nose, Bob--if it weren't for that you'd be a deuced good-looking fellow--like me; but you ain't." "Thanks--anything else?" said I. "Well, I've got a kink in my birth, you see--and that's as big a kill-joy as I know. I hate it!" It _was_ hard luck. He would have made such a splendid Marquis of Whitby! and done such honor to the proud old family motto: "Roy ne puis, prince ne daigne, Rohan je suis!" Instead of which he got himself a signet-ring, and on it he caused to be engraved a zero within a naught, and round them: "Rohan ne puis, roi ne daigne. Rien ne suis!" Soon it became pretty evident that a subtle change was being wrought in him.