Green Fairy (Dangerous Spirits) by Gold Kyell

Author:Gold, Kyell [Gold, Kyell]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2012-07-31T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 14

You may criticize many things about my predilection, father, and many of them would be true. But for all of those, there is one point which you may not challenge; namely, that I have had a far wider experience of partners, and by that I do not mean to imply some crude tally of marks in a ledger. I mean that as a young buck, when you attended balls and soirees and searched through the forest of high society for companion, your choices were limited to a small segment of the population. Marriages are arranged, yes, but even when you seek only a dalliance, a consort for a short span of mutually enjoyable evenings, you cannot pick and choose. Take Minon, for example. His father found a lady squirrel for him to marry, but in the years before that marriage, when he was still making his desperate attempts to be accepted by our peers, he was never successful in his courtships of any but mice, rats, and, once, a shrew whom he insisted had a lovely personality. He walked with me among the chamois, the stately Rhonese elk and Anglic red deer, and none of them gave him so much as a second glance. Just as I, father, walked among the vixens and the wolves, the exotic lions and leopards, and even the less haughty weasels and stoats. They happily shared my conversation, at which I am somewhat more gifted than the unfortunate Minon, but even that facility of manner would not have been enough to persuade any of those lovely ladies to spend an hour alone with me, let alone an entire evening.

And yet, for as small a sum as you might spend at one of our second-best restaurants, I was blessed again with the company of a fox as lovely as any of those vixens, at my beck and call for the entire night. He was quite patient with me, that night; I was so eager to show him off to Bertrand that I fear I became quite over-excited with him. His quiet dignity in the face of my enthusiastic plans only set my resolve that he would be my consort for the night of the ball.

He had asked if he might go, and I prevented him, but had not told him my plans. While I made my ablutions, he complimented my chambers, my taste in decorations and artwork. Of course, father, my tastes in artwork had their roots in my upbringing, from the playful murals in my nursery (I still recall the bright red sunset and the design on the shields of the chamois warriors) to the paintings I grew to love and appreciate in our salon as I myself grew. I would not have developed the discerning eye I now possess were it not for your guidance, both in instruction and by example.

I believe I have made you proud in my artistic taste (if nothing else) and created of my own chambers a monument to

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