The night was fine and calm--
the air singularly balmy,--and he suddenly decided to take a stroll
by the river before finally returning to his rooms for the night.
There is one very quiet bit of the Seine in Rouen where the water
flows between unspoilt grassy banks, which in summer are a frequent
resort for lovers to dream the dreams which so often come to
nothing,--and here Cazeau betook himself to smoke and meditate on
the brilliancy of his future prospects. The river had been high in
flood during the week, and the grass which sloped towards the water
was still wet, and heavy to the tread. But Cazeau limited his walk
to the broad summit of the bank, being aware that the river just
below flowed over a muddy quicksand, into which, should a man chance
to fall, it would be death and fast burial at one and the same
moment. And Cazeau set a rather exorbitant value on his own life, as
most men do whose lives are of no sort of consequence to the world.
So he was careful to walk where there was the least danger of
slipping,--and as he lit an excellent cigar, and puffed the faint
blue rings of smoke out into the clear moonlit atmosphere, he was in
a very agreeable frame of mind. He was crafty and clever in his
way,--one of those to whom the Yankee term "cute" would apply in its
fullest sense,--and he had the happy knack of forgetting his own
mistakes and follies, and excusing his own sins with as much ease as
though he were one of the "blood-royal" of nations.
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