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Transcriber's Note:
The Table of Contents is not part of the original book.

I WAS MAKING PRETENCE, IN A SHALLOW WAY NO DOUBT, TO STUDY THE PAPERS ON THE TABLE. AND LUCILLE STANDING BEFORE MY DESK WAS LOOKING DOWN AT MY BENT HEAD, NOTING PERHAPS THE GREY HAIRS THERE. THUS WE REMAINED FOR A MINUTE IN SILENCE. See [Page 140].

DROSS

By HENRY SETON MERRIMAN

AUTHOR OF

“WITH EDGED TOOLS,” “THE SOWERS,” ETC.

HERBERT S. STONE & CO.

CHICAGO AND NEW YORK

MDCCCXCIX

COPYRIGHT, MDCCCXCVI

BY HERBERT S. STONE & COMPANY

CONTENTS

Chapter I

Mushrooms

"La célébrité est comme le feu, qui brûle de près et illumine de loin."

Under a glorious sky, in the year 1869, Paris gathered to rejoice in the centenary of the birth of the First Napoleon. A gathering this of mushroom nobility, soldiery and diplomacy, to celebrate the hundredth anniversary of the greatest mushroom that ever sprang to life in the hotbed of internecine strife.

"Adventurers all," said John Turner, the great Paris banker, with whom I was in the Church of the Invalides; "and yonder," he added, indicating the Third Napoleon, "is the cleverest."

We had pushed our way into the gorgeous church, and now rubbed elbows with some that wore epaulettes on peaceful shoulders. There were ladies present, too. Did not the fair beings contribute to the rise and fall of that marvellous Second Empire? Representatives of almost every European power paid homage that day to the memory of a little Corsican officer of artillery.

As for me, I went from motives of curiosity, as, no doubt, went many others, if indeed all had so good a call. In my neighbourhood, for instance, stood a stout gentleman in court uniform, who wept aloud whenever the organ permitted his grief to be audible.

"Who is that?" I inquired of my companion.

"A Legitimist, who would perhaps accept a Napoleonic post," replied John Turner, in his stout and simple way.

"And is he weeping because the man who was born a hundred years ago is dead?"

"No! He is weeping because that man's nephew may perchance note his emotion."

One could never tell how dense or how acute John Turner really was. His round, fat face was always immobile and fleshy—no wrinkle, no movement of lip or eyelid, ever gave the cue to his inmost thought. He was always good-natured and indifferent—a middle-aged bachelor who had found life not hollow, but full—of food.

Nature having given me long legs (wherewith to give the slip to my responsibilities, and also to the bailiffs, as many of my female relatives have enjoyed saying), I could look over the heads of the majority of people present, and so saw the Emperor Napoleon III for the first time in my life. The mind is, after all, a smaller thing than those who deny the existence of that which is beyond their comprehension would have us believe. At that moment I forgot to think of all that lay behind those dull, extinguished eyes. I forgot that this was a maker of history, and one who will be placed by chroniclers, writing in the calm of the twentieth century, only second to his greater uncle among remarkable Frenchmen, and merely wondered whether Napoleon III perceived the somewhat obtrusive emotion of my neighbour in the court uniform.

But a keener observer than myself could scarce have discerned the information on the still, pale features of the Emperor, who, indeed, in his implacability always reminded me more of my own countrymen than of the French. The service was proceeding with that cunning rise and fall of voice and music which, I take it, has won not a few emotional souls back to the Mother Church. Suddenly John Turner chuckled in a way that fat people have.

"Laughing at your d—d piano-case," he explained.

I had told him shortly before how I had boarded the Calais boat at Dover in the form and semblance of a piano, snugly housed in one of Messrs. Erard's cases, while my servant engaged in pleasant converse on the quay the bailiff who had been set to watch for me: this, while they were actually slinging me on board. The picture of the surprise of my fellow-passengers when Loomer gravely unscrewed me and I emerged from my travelling-carriage in mid-channel had pleased John Turner vastly. Indeed, he told the story to the end of his days, and even brought that end within hail at times by an over-indulgence in apoplectic mirth. He chuckled at it now in the midst of this solemn service. But I, more easily moved perhaps by outward show and pomp, could only think of our surroundings. The excitement of giving my creditors the slip was a thing of the past; for those were rapid days, and I no laggard, as many took care to tell me, on the heel of the flying moment.

The ceremony in which we were taking part was indeed strange enough to rivet the attention of any who witnessed it—strange, I take it, as any historical scene of a century that saw the rise and fall of Napoleon I. Strange beyond belief, that this dynasty should arise from ashes as cold as those that Europe heaped on St. Helena's dead, to celebrate the birth of its founder!

Who would have dared to prophesy fifty years earlier that a second Emperor should some day sit upon the throne of France? Who would have ventured to foretell that this capricious people, loathing as they did in 1815 the name of Buonaparte, should one day choose by universal suffrage another of that family to rule over them?

Few of those assembled in the great tomb were of devout enough mind to take much heed of the service now proceeding at the altar, where the priest droned and the incense rose in slow clouds towards the dome. We all stared at each other freely enough, and in truth the faces of many, not to mention bright uniforms and brilliant names, warranted the abstraction from holy thought and fervour. The old soldiers lining the aisle had fought, some at Inkerman, some at Solferino, some in Mexico, that land of ill-omen. The generals of all nations, mixing freely in the crowd, bowed grimly enough to each other. They had met before.

It was indeed a strange jumble of prince and pauper, friend and foe, patriot and adventurer. And the face that drew my gaze oftenest was one as still and illegible now as it was on the morning of January 11, four years later, when I bowed before it at Chiselhurst.

The Third Napoleon, with eyes that none could read—a quiet, self-possessed enigma—passed down the aisle between his ranked soldiers, and the religious part of the day's festivities was over. Paris promised to be en fête while daylight lasted, and at night a display of fireworks of unprecedented splendour was to close the festive celebration. There is no lighter heart than that which beats within the narrow waistcoat of the little Parisian bourgeois, unless indeed it be that in the trim bodice of madame his wife; and even within the church walls we could hear the sound of merriment in the streets.

When the Emperor had gone we all moved towards the doors of the church, congratulating each other, embracing each other, laughing and weeping all in one breath.

One near to me seized my hand.

"You are English!" he cried.

"I am."

"Then embrace me."

We embraced.

"Waterloo"—he called it Vatterlo—"is forgotten. It is buried in the Crimea," cried this emotional son of Gaul. He was a stout man who had partaken of garlic at déjeûner.

"It is," I answered.

And we embraced again. Then I got away from him. It was gratifying but inexpedient to be an Englishman at that moment, and John Turner, whose clothes were made in Paris, silently denied me and edged away. Others seemed desirous of burying Waterloo also, but I managed the obsequies of that great victory with a shake of the hand.

"Vive l'Empereur!" they cried. "Long live Napoleon!"

And I shouted as loud as any. Whatever one may think, it is always wise to agree with the mob.

On the steps of the church I found John Turner awaiting me.

"Finished embracing your new-found friend?" he asked me, with a shortness which may have been a matter of breath. At all events, it was habitual with this well-fed philosopher.

"We were forgetting Waterloo," I answered.

At that moment a merry laugh behind us made me turn. It was not directed towards myself, and was doubtless raised by some incident which had escaped our notice. The mere fact that this voice was raised in merriment did not make me wheel round on my heel as if I had been shot. It was the voice itself—some note of sympathy which I seemed to have always known and yet never to have heard until this moment. A strange thing—the reader will think—to happen to a man in his thirties, who had knocked about the world, doing but little good therein, as some are ready and even anxious to relate.

Strange it may be, but it was true. I seemed to have known that voice all my life—and it was only the merry laugh of a heedless girl.

Has any listened to the prattle of the schoolroom without hearing at odd moments the tone of some note that is not girlish—the voice of the woman speaking gravely through the chatter of the child?

I seemed to hear that note now, and turning, found the owner of the voice within touch of me. She was tall and slim, with a certain fresh immaturity, which was like the scent of the first spring flowers in my own Norfolk woods at home. Flower-like, too, was her face—somewhat long and narrow, with a fair flush on it of youth, health and happiness. The merriest eyes in the world were looking laughingly into the face of an old gentleman at her side, smiling, happy eyes of innocent maidenhood. And yet here again I saw the woman in the girl. I saw a gracious lady, knowing life, and being yet pure, having learned of good and evil only to remember the good. For the knowledge of evil is like vaccine—it causes disturbance only when hidden impurity awaits it.

"Come," said John Turner, taking my arm, "no one else wants to forget Waterloo."

I went with him a little. Then I paused.

"Who is the young lady coming down the steps behind us?"

John Turner, looking over his shoulder, gave a grunt.

"Old De Clericy and his daughter," he answered. "One of the families that are too old to keep pace with the times."

"WHO IS THE YOUNG LADY COMING DOWN THE STEPS BEHIND US?"

We walked on a little.

"There is a chance for you—wants a secretary," muttered my companion.

"Does he?" I exclaimed, stopping. "Then introduce me."

"Not I."

"Why?"

"Can't introduce a man who came across in a piano-case," he answered, with a laugh, which made me remember that this was a man of station and some standing in Paris, while I was but a vagabond and ne'er-do-well.

"Then I'll introduce myself," I said, hastily.

John Turner shrugged his broad shoulders and walked on. As for me, I stopped and on the impulse of the moment turned.

Monsieur and Mademoiselle de Clericy were coming slowly towards me, and more than one looked at the fair young girl with a franker admiration than I cared about, while she was happily unconscious of it. It would seem that she must lately have left the convent, for the guileless pink and white of that pure life lingered on her face, while her eyes danced with an excitement out of all proportion to the moment. What should she know of Napoleon I, and how rejoice for France when she knew but little of the dark days through which the great general had brought that land?

I edged my way towards them through the crowd without pausing to reflect what I was about to do. I had run away from my creditors, it is true, but was not called upon to work for my living. The Howards had not done much of that, so far as I knew; though many of my ancestors, if one may credit the old portraits at home, had fought for rights, and even wrongs, with considerable spirit and success.

The throng was a well-dressed one, and consequently of a cold and evil temper if one worked against it. I succeeded, however, in reaching Monsieur de Clericy and touched his arm. He turned hastily, as one possessing foes as well as friends, and showed me a most benevolent countenance, kindly and sympathetic even when accosted by a total stranger.

"Monsieur de Clericy?" I asked.

He peered up at me with pleasant, short-sighted eyes while returning my salute.

"But yes. Am I happy enough to be able to do anything for Monsieur?"

He spoke in a high, thin voice that was almost childlike, and a feeling of misgiving ran through me that one so young and inexperienced as Mademoiselle de Clericy should be abroad on such a day with no better escort than this old man.

"Pardon my addressing you," I said, "but I hear that you are seeking a secretary. I only ask permission to call at your hotel and apply for the post."

"But, mon grand monsieur," he said with a delightful playfulness, spreading out his hands in recognition of my height and east-country bulk, "this is no time to talk of affairs. To-day we are at pleasure."

"Not all, Monsieur; some are busy enough," I replied, handing him my card, which he held close to his eyes, after the manner of one who has never possessed long or keen sight.

"What determination!" he exclaimed, with an old man's tolerance. "Mon Dieu! these English allies of ours!"

"Well!" he said, after a pause, "if Monsieur honours me with such a request, I shall be in and at your service from ten o'clock to-morrow morning."

He felt in his pocket and handed me a card with courtesy. It was quite refreshing to meet such a man in Paris in 1869—so naïve, so unassuming, so free from that aggressive self-esteem which characterized Frenchmen before the war. Since I had arrived in the capital under the circumstances that amused John Turner so consumedly, I had been tempted to raise my fist in the face of every second flaneur I met on the boulevard.

Again I joined my English friend, who was standing where I had left him, looking around him with a stout, good-natured tolerance.

"Well," he asked, "have you got the situation?"

"No; but I am going to call to-morrow morning at ten o'clock and obtain it."

"Umph!" said John Turner; "I did not know you were such a scoundrel."

Chapter II

Monsieur

"La destinée a deux manières de nous briser; en se refusant à nos désirs et en les accomplissant."

To some the night brings wiser or at all events a second counsel. For myself, however, it has never been so. In the prosecution of such small enterprises as have marked a life no more eventful than those around it, I have always awakened in the morning of the same mind as I was when sleep laid its quiet hand upon me. It seems, moreover, that I have made just as many as but no more mistakes than my neighbours. Taking it likewise as a broad generality, the balance seems, in my experience, to tell quite perceptibly in favour of those who make up their minds and hold to that decision firmly, rather than towards such men as seek counsel of the multitude and trim their sail to the tame breeze of precedent.

"Always go straight for a jump," my father had shouted to me once, years ago, while I sat up in a Norfolk ditch and watched my horse disappear through a gap in the next hedge.

I awoke on the morning after the centenary fêtes without any doubt in my mind—being still determined to seek a situation for which I was unfitted.

Having quarrelled with my father, who obstinately refused to pay a few debts such as no young man living in London could, with self-respect, avoid, I was still in the enjoyment of a small annual income left to me by a mother whom I had never seen—upon whose grave in the old, disused churchyard at Hopton I had indeed been taught to lay a few flowers before I fully realised the meaning of such tribute. That my irate old sire had threatened to cut me off with as near an approach to one shilling as an entail would allow had not given me much anxiety. The dear old gentleman had done so a hundred times before—as early, indeed, as my second term at Cambridge, where he had considerably surprised the waiter at the Bull by a display of honest British wrath.

It was, in all truth, necessary that I should do something—should find one of those occupations (heavily salaried) for which, I make no doubt, as many incompetent youths seek to-day as twenty-five years ago.

"What you want," John Turner had said, when I explained my position to him, "is no doubt something that will enable a gentleman to live like a lord."

Now, Monsieur de Clericy was probably prepared to give two hundred pounds a year to his secretary. But it was with Mademoiselle—and I did not even know her Christian name—that I was anxious to treat. What would she give?

It was, I remember, a lovely morning. What weather these Napoleons had, from Austerlitz down to the matchless autumn of 1870!

The address printed in the corner of Monsieur de Clericy's card was unknown to me, although I was passably acquainted with the Paris streets. The Rue des Palmiers was, I learnt, across the river, and, my informant added, lay between the boulevard and the Seine. This was a part of the bright city which Haussmann and Napoleon III had as yet left untouched—a quarter of quiet, gloomy streets and narrow alleys. The sun was shining on the gay river as I crossed the bridge of the Holy Fathers, and the water seemed to dance and laugh in the morning air. The flags were still flying, for these jolly Parisians are always loth to take in their bunting. It was, indeed, a gay world in which I moved that morning.

The Hôtel Clericy I found at the end of the Rue des Palmiers, which short street the great house closed. Indeed, the Rue des Palmiers was but an avenue of houses terminated by the gloomy abode of the Clericys. The house was built behind a high stone wall broken only by a railed doorway.

I rang the bell and heard its tinkle far away within the dwelling. A covered way led from the street to the house, and I followed on the heels of the servant, a smart young Parisian, looking curiously at the little garden which in London would have been forlorn and smutty. Here in Paris bright flowers bloomed healthily and a little fountain plashed with that restful monotony which ever suggests the patios of Spain.

The young man was one of those modern servants who know their business.

"Monsieur's name?" he said, sharply.

"Howard."

We were within the dimly lighted hall, with its scent of old carpets and rusting armour, and he led the way upstairs. He threw open the drawing-room door and mentioned my name in his short, well-trained way. There was but one person in the large room, and she did not hear the man's voice; for she was laughing herself, and was at that moment chasing a small dog around the room. The little animal, which entered gaily into the sport, was worrying a dainty handkerchief in his teeth, and so engaged was he in this destructive purpose that he ran straight into my hands. I rescued the bedraggled piece of cambric and stood upright to find mademoiselle standing before me with mirth and a certain dignified self-possession in her eyes.

"THANK YOU, MONSIEUR," SHE SAID, TAKING THE HANDKERCHIEF FROM MY HAND.

"Thank you, Monsieur," she said, taking the handkerchief from my hand. It was evident that she did not recognise me as the stranger who had accosted her father on the previous day.

I explained my business in as few words as possible.

"The servant," I added, "made a mistake in bringing me to this room. I did not mean to trouble Mademoiselle; my business is with M. de Clericy. I am applying for the post of secretary."

She looked at me with a quick surprise, and her eyes lighted on my clothes with some significance, which made me think that perhaps Monsieur de Clericy gave less even than two hundred pounds a year to his amanuensis.

"Ah!" she said, with her thought apparent in her candid eyes. "My father is at present in his study—engaged, I believe, with Monsieur Miste."

"Miste?" I echoed, for the name was no less peculiar than her way of pronouncing it. She seemed to look for some sign that I knew this man.

"Yes—your predecessor."

"Ah! a secretary—a man-machine that writes."

She shook her head with a happy laugh, sinking, as it were, into an air of interest, which gave a sharp feeling that I had perhaps been forestalled in other matters by the man called Miste. She looked at me with such candid eyes, however, that the thought seemed almost a sacrilege, offered gratuitously to innocence and trustfulness. Her face was, indeed, a guarantee that if her maiden fancy had been touched, her heart was at all events free from that deeper feeling which assuredly leaves its mark upon all who suffer it.

The name of Monsieur de Clericy's former secretary in some way grated on my hearing, so that instead of retiring from the presence of mademoiselle as my manners bade me do, I lingered, seeking opportunity to continue the conversation.

"I do not wish to intrude on Monsieur de Clericy," I said. "It is perhaps inexpedient that the new machine should be seen of the old."

Mademoiselle laughed, and again I caught the deep silver note of sympathy in her voice that was so new and yet familiar. In laughter the soul surely speaks.

"The word scarcely describes Monsieur Miste," retorted she.

"Does any single word describe him?"

For a moment she reflected. She was without self-consciousness, and spoke with me, a stranger, as easily as she talked to her father.

"A single word?" she echoed. "Yes—a chimera."

At this moment the sound of voices in the corridor made further delay impossible.

"Perhaps Mademoiselle will allow me to ring for the servant to conduct me to Monsieur de Clericy's study," I said.

"I will show you the room," replied she; "its door is never closed to me. I hear voices, which probably betoken the departure of Monsieur Miste."

The sound, indeed, came distinctly enough to our ears, but it was of one voice only, the benevolent tones of the Vicomte de Clericy, followed by his pleasant laugh. If Miste made reply, the words must have been uttered softly, for I heard them not. I opened the door, and mademoiselle led the way.

A man was descending the broad staircase which I had lately mounted—a slim man, who stepped gently. He did not turn, but continued his way, disappearing in the gloom of the large entrance hall. I gathered a quick impression of litheness and a noiseless footfall, of a sleek, black head, and something stirring within me, which was stronger than curiosity. I wondered why he was quitting the Vicomte's service. Such was my first sight of Charles Miste, and my first knowledge of his existence.

The Vicomte had returned to his room, closing the door behind him, upon which mademoiselle now tapped lightly.

"Father," I heard her say as she entered, "a gentleman wishes to see you."

As I passed her, I caught the scent of some violets she wore in her dress, and the spring-like freshness of the odour seemed a part of herself.

The Vicomte received me so graciously that he and not I might have been the applicant for a situation. Bowing, he peered at me with short-sighted eyes.

"The English gentleman of yesterday," he said, indicating a chair.

"I took you at your word, Monsieur," I replied, "and now apply for the post of secretary."

Taking the chair he placed at my disposal, I awaited his further pleasure. He had seated himself at the writing-table, and was fingering a pen with thoughtfulness or perhaps hesitation. The table, I noticed, was bare of the litter which usually cumbers the desk of a busy man. The calendar lying at his elbow was an ornamental cardboard trifle, embellished with cupids and simpering shepherdesses—such as girls send to each other at the New Year. The surroundings, in fact, were indicative rather of a trifling leisure than of important affairs. The study and writing-table seemed to me to suggest a pleasant fiction of labours, to which the Vicomte retired when he desired solitude and a cigarette. I wondered what my duties might be.

After a pause, the old gentleman raised his eyes—the kindest eyes in the world—to my face, and I perceived beneath his white lashes a great benevolence, in company with a twinkling sense of humour.

"Does Monsieur know anything of the politics of this unfortunate country?" he asked, and he leant forward, his elbows on the bare writing-table, his attitude suggesting the kind encouragement which a great doctor will vouchsafe to a timid patient. The old Frenchman's manner, indeed, aroused in me that which I must be allowed to call my conscience—a cumbrous machine, I admit, hard to set going and soon running down. The sport of this adventure, entered into in a spirit of devilry, seemed suddenly to have shrunk to the dimensions of a somewhat sorry jest. It was, I now reflected, but a poor game to deceive an innocent girl and an old man as guileless. Innocence is a great safeguard.

"Monsieur," I answered, on the spur of the moment, "I have no such qualities as you naturally seek in a secretary. I received my education at Eton and at Cambridge University. If you want a secretary to bowl you a straight ball, or pull a fairly strong oar, I am your man, for I learnt little else. I possess, indeed, the ordinary education of an English gentleman, sufficient Latin to misread an epitaph or a motto, and too little Greek to do me any harm. I have, however, a knowledge of French, which I acquired at Geneva, whither my father sent me when I—er—was sent down from Cambridge. I have again quarrelled with my father. It is an annual affair. We usually quarrel when the hunting ends. This time it is serious. I have henceforth to make my way in the world. I am, Monsieur, what you would call a bad subject."

The tolerance with which my abrupt confession was received only made me the more self-reproachful. The worst of beginning to tell the truth is that it is so hard to stop. I could not inform him that I had fallen in love with a tone in his daughter's voice, with a light in her eyes—I, who had never made serious love to any woman yet. He would only think me mad.

There were in truth many matters with which I ought to have made the Vicomte acquainted. My quarrel with my father, for instance, had originated in my refusal to marry Isabella Gayerson—a young lady with landed estates and a fortune of eighty thousand pounds. I merely informed Monsieur, I confess, that my father and I had fallen out over money matters. Cannot most marriages arranged by loving parents be so described? To my recitation the old gentleman listened with much patience, and when I had partially eased my soul he merely nodded, saying:

"My question is not yet answered, mon ami. Do you know aught of French politics?"

"Absolutely nothing," was my answer, made in all honesty. And I thought I was speaking my own dismissal.

Monsieur de Clericy leant back in his chair with a shrug of the shoulders.

"Well," he muttered, half to himself, "perhaps it is of little consequence. You understand, Monsieur," he continued in a louder tone, looking at me kindly, "I like you. I may say it without impertinence, because I am an old man and you are young. I liked you as soon as I saw you yesterday. The duties for which I require a secretary are light. It is chiefly to be near me when I want you. I have my little estates in the South, in the Bourbonnais, and near to Orleans. I require some one to correspond with my agents, to travel perhaps to my lands when a question arises which the bailiffs cannot settle unaided."

Thus he spoke for some time, and my duties, as he detailed them, sounded astonishingly light. Indeed, he paused occasionally as if seeking to augment them by the addition of trivial household tasks.

"Madame, the Vicomtesse," he said, "will also be glad to avail herself of your services."

The existence of this lady was thus made known to me for the first time. I have wondered since why, in this conversation, we with one accord ignored the first question in such affairs—namely, the salary paid by Monsieur to his secretary.

"I should require you," he said finally, "to live in the Hôtel Clericy while we are in Paris."

Some years earlier, during a hunting expedition in Africa, I had stalked a lion all night and far into the following day. On finally obtaining a sight of my prey, I found him old, disease-stricken and half-blind. The feelings of that moment I have never forgotten. A sensation near akin to it—a sort of shame attaching to a pursuit unworthy of a sportsman—came to me again now, when I was told that I might live under the roof that sheltered Mademoiselle de Clericy.

"You hesitate," said the Vicomte. "I am afraid it is an essential. I must have you always at hand."

Chapter III

Madame

"En paroles ou en actions, être discret, c'est s'abstenir."

It is to be presumed that the reader knows the usual result of such a tussle with the conscience as that upon which I now entered. At various turning points in a chequered career I have met my conscience thus face to face, and am honest enough to confess that the victory has not always fallen to that ghostly monitor.

After favouring me with his ultimatum, the Vicomte looked at me expectantly. I thought of Mademoiselle de Clericy's presence in that old house. Who was I to turn my back on the good things that the gods gave me? I hate your timid man who looks behind him on an unknown road.

"As Monsieur wills," I said, and with a sigh, almost of relief I thought, my companion rose.

"We will seek the Vicomtesse," he said. "My wife will have pleasure in making your acquaintance. And to-morrow you shall have my answer."

"Ah!" thought I; "the Vicomtesse decides it."

And I followed Monsieur de Clericy towards the door.

"It is half-past eleven," he said, looking at his modest silver watch. "We shall find Madame in her boudoir."

This apartment, it appeared, was situated beyond the drawing-room, of which we now passed the door. Below us was the great square hall, dark and gloomy; for its windows had been heavily barred in the old stirring times, and but little light filtered through the ironwork. At the head of the stairs was a gallery completely surrounding the quadrangle, and from this gallery access was gained to all the dwelling rooms.

The Vicomte tapped at the door of Madame's room, and without waiting for an answer passed in. I, having purposely lingered, did not hear the few words spoken upon the threshold, and only advanced when bidden to do so by my companion.

"MONSIEUR HOWARD NATURALLY WISHED TO BE PRESENTED TO YOU."

An elderly lady stood by the window, having just risen from the broad seat thereof, which was littered with the trifles of a lady's work-basket. The Vicomtesse was obviously many years younger than her husband—a trim woman of fifty or thereabouts, with crinkled grey hair and the clear brown complexion of the Provençale. Beneath the grey hair there looked out at me the cleverest eyes I have ever seen in a human head. I bowed, made suddenly aware that I stood in the presence of an individuality, near an oasis—as it were—in the dreary desert of human commonplace. And strange to say, at the same moment my conscience laid itself down to sleep. Madame la Vicomtesse de Clericy was a woman capable of guarding those near and dear to her.

"Monsieur Howard," explained her husband, looking at me, with his white fingers nervously intertwined, "is desirous of filling the post left vacant by the departure of our friend Charles Miste. We have had a little talk on affairs. It is possible that we may come to a mutually satisfactory arrangement. Monsieur Howard naturally wished to be presented to you."

Madame bowed, her clear dark eyes resting almost musingly on my face. She waited for me to speak, whereas nine women out of ten would have broken silence.

"I have explained to Monsieur le Vicomte," I hastened to say, "that I have none of the requisite qualifications for the post, and that my female relatives—my aunts, in fact—looked upon me as a mauvais sujet."

She smiled, and her eyes sought the lace-work held in her busy fingers. Mademoiselle de Clericy had, I remembered, worn a piece of such dainty needlework at her throat on the previous morning. I learnt to look for that piece of ever-growing lace-work in later days. Madame was never without it, and worked quaint patterns, learnt in a convent on the pine-clad slopes of Var.

"Monsieur Howard," went on the Vicomte, "is a gentleman of position in his own country on the east coast of England. He has, however, had a difference—a difference with his father."

The eyes were raised to my face for a brief moment.

"In the matter of a marriage of convenience," I added, giving the plain truth on the impulse of the moment, or under the influence, perhaps, of Madame de Clericy's glance. Then I recollected that this was a different story from that tale of a monetary difficulty which I had related to Madame's husband ten minutes earlier. I glanced at him to see whether he had noticed the discrepancy, but was instantly relieved of my anxiety, so completely was the old man absorbed in an affectionate and somewhat humble contemplation of his wife. It was easy to see how matters stood in the Clericy household, and I conceived a sudden feeling of relief that so delicate a flower as Mademoiselle de Clericy should have so capable a guardian in the person of her mother. Evil takes that shape in which it is first held up to our vision. Incompetent and careless mothers are in fact criminals. Mademoiselle de Clericy had one near to her who could at all events clothe necessary knowledge in a reassuring garment.

"A marriage of convenience," repeated Madame, speaking for the first time. "It is so easy to be mistaken in such matters, is it not?"

"As easy for the one as for the other, Madame," replied I. "And it was I, and not my father, who was most intimately concerned."

She looked at me with a little upward nod of the head and a slow, wise smile. One never knows whence some women gather their knowledge of the world.

"Monsieur knows Paris?" she asked.

"As an Englishman, Madame."

"Then you only know the worst," was her comment.

She did not ask me to be seated. It was, I suspected, the hour for déjeûner. For this household was evidently one to adhere to old-fashioned customs. There was something homelike about this pleasant lady. Her presence in a room gave to the atmosphere something refined and womanly, which was new to one who, like myself, had lived mostly among men. Indeed, my companions of former days—no saints, I admit—would have been surprised could they have seen me bowing and making congés to this elderly lady like a dancing master. Moreover, the post I sought was lapsing into a domestic situation, for which my antecedents eminently unfitted me, nor did I pretend to think otherwise. Had I reached the age of discretion? Is there indeed such an age? I have seen old men and women who make one doubt it. At thirty-one does a man begin to range himself? "Ah, well!" thought I, "vogue la galère." I had made a beginning, and in Norfolk they do not breed men who leave a quest half accomplished.

For a moment I waited, and Madame seemed to have nothing more to say. I had not at that time, nor indeed have I since, acquired that polish of the world which takes the form of a brilliant, and I suspect insincere, manner in society. I had no compliments ready. I therefore took my leave.

The Vicomte accompanied me to the top of the stairs, and there made sure that the servants were awaiting my departure in the hall.

"To-morrow morning," he said, with a friendly touch on my arm, "you shall have my answer."

With this news then I returned to my comfortable quarters in John Turner's appartement in the Avenue d'Antan. I found that great banker about to partake of luncheon, which was served to him at midday, after the fashion of the country of his adoption. During my walk across the river and through the gardens of the Tuileries—at that time at the height of their splendour—I had not reflected very deeply on the matter in hand. I had thought more of Mademoiselle de Clericy's bright eyes than aught else.

"Good morning," said my host, whom I had not seen before going out. "Where have you been?"

"To the Vicomte de Clericy's."

"The devil you have! Then you are not so stolid as you look."

And he laughed as he shook out his table napkin. His thought was only half with me, for he was looking at the menu.

"Arcachon oysters!" he added; "the best in the world! I hate your bloated natives. Give me a small oyster."

"Give me a dozen," I answered, helping myself from the dish at my elbow.

"And did the Vicomte kick you downstairs?" asked my host, as he compounded in the dip of his plate a wonderful mixture of vinegar and spices.

"No. He is going to consider my application, and will give me his answer to-morrow morning."

John Turner set down the vinegar bottle and looked across the table at me with an expression of wonder on his broad face.

"Well, I never! Did you see Madame? Clever woman, Madame. Gives excellent dinners."

"Yes; I was presented to her."

"Ah! A match for you, Mr. Dick. Did you notice her feet?"

"I noticed that they were well shod."

"Just so!" muttered John Turner, who was now engaged in gastronomic delights. "In France a clever woman is always bien chaussée. Her brains run to her toes. In England it is different. If a woman has a brain it undermines her morals or ruins her waist."

"Only the plain women," suggested I, who had passed several seasons in London not altogether in vain.

"A pretty woman is never clever—she is too wise," said John Turner, stolidly, and he sipped his chablis.

The mysterious sauce with which this great gastronome flavoured his oysters was now prepared, while I, it must be confessed, had consumed my portion, and John Turner relapsed into silence. I watched him as he ate delicately, slowly, with a queer refinement. Many are ready to talk of some crafts under the name of art, which must now, forsooth, be spelt with a capital letter—why, I know no more than the artists. John Turner had his Art, and now exercised it. I always noticed that during the earlier and more piquant courses of a meal he was cynical and apt to give speech on matters of human meanness and vanity not unknown to many who are silent about them. Later on, when the dishes became more succulent, so would his views of life sweeten and acquire a mellower flavour. His round face now began to beam more pleasantly at me across the well-served table, like a rich autumn moon rising over a fat land.

"Pity it is," he said, as he placed a lamb cutlet on my plate, "that you and your father cannot agree."

"Pity that the guv'nor is so unreasonable," I answered.

"I do not suppose there is any question of reason on either side," rejoined my companion, with a laugh. "But I think you might make a little more allowance. You must remember that we old fellows are not so wise and experienced as our youngers and betters. I know he is a hot-blooded old reprobate—that father of yours. I thumped him at Eton for it half a century ago. And you're a worthy son to him, I make no doubt—you have his great chin. But you are all he has, Dick—don't forget that now and remember it too late. Have another cutlet?"

"Thanks."

"Gad! I'd give five hundred a year for your appetite and digestion. Think of that old man, my boy, down in Norfolk at this time of year, with nobody to swear at but the servants. Norfolk is just endurable in October, when game and 'longshore herrings are in. But now—with lamb getting muttony—poor old chap!"

"Well," I answered, "he could not eat me if I was at home. But I'll go back in the autumn. I generally make it up before the First."

"What a beautiful thing is filial love," murmured my companion, with a stout sigh, as he turned his attention to the matter of importance on the plate before him; and indeed—with its handicap of fifty years—I think his appetite put my hearty craving for food to shame.

We talked of other things for a while—of matters connected with the gay town in which we found ourselves. We discussed the merits of the wine before us, and it was not until later in the course of the repast that John Turner again reverted to my affairs. If these portions of our talk alone are reported, the reader must kindly remember that they are at all events relevant to the subject, however unworthy, of this narrative.

"So," said my stout companion when the coffee was served, "you are tricking the father so that you may make love to the daughter?"

This view of the matter did not commend itself to my hearing. Indeed, the truth so often gives offence that it is no wonder so few deal in it. A quick answer was on my tongue, but fortunately remained there. I—who had never been too difficult in such matters—did not like something in my friend's voice that savoured of disrespect towards Mademoiselle de Clericy. In a younger man I might have been tempted to allow such a hint to develop into something stronger which would offer me the satisfaction of throwing the speaker down the stairs. But John Turner was not a man to quarrel with, even when one was in the wrong. So I kept silence and burnt my lips at my coffee cup.

"Well," he went on placidly, "Mademoiselle Lucille is a pretty girl."

"Lucille," I said. "Is that her name?"

He cocked his eye at me across the table.

"Yes—a pretty name, eh?"

"It is," I answered him, with steady eyes. "I never heard a prettier."

Chapter IV

Disqualified

"Rêver c'est le bonheur; attendre c'est la vie."

The Vicomte de Clericy's answer was favourable to my suit, and I duly received permission to install myself in the apartments lately vacated by Charles Miste—whoever he may have been.

"And what, sir, is to become of me?" inquired my servant, when I instructed him to pack my clothes and made known to him my movements in the immediate future. I had forgotten Loomer. A secretary could scarcely come into residence attended by a valet, rejoicing in the usual direct or indirect emoluments, and possessing that abnormal appetite which only belongs to the man servant living in the kitchen. I told him, therefore, that his future was entirely his own, and that while his final fate was unquestionable, the making of his earthly career remained, for the present, in his own hands. In fact, I gave him permission to commence at once his descent to that bourne whither, I feared, his footsteps would tend.

Mr. Loomer was good enough to evince signs of emotion, and from a somewhat confused speech, I gathered that he refused to go to Avernus until he could make the journey in my service and at my heels. Ultimately it was agreed, however, that he should seek a temporary situation—he was a man of many talents, and as handy in the stable as in a gentleman's dressing-room—and remain therein until I should require his services again. As it happened, I had sufficient ready cash to pay him his wages, with an additional sum to compensate for the brevity of his notice to quit a sorry service. He took the money without surprise. It is surely a sign of good breeding to receive one's due with no astonishment.

"Can't you keep me on, sir?" he pleaded a last time, when I had proved by a gift of a pair of hunting boots (which were too small for me) that we really were about to part.

"My good Loomer, I am going into service myself. I always said I could black a boot better than you."

As I left the room I heard the worthy domestic mutter something about "pretty work," and "a Howard of Hopton," and made no doubt that he regretted less the fall of my ancestral dignity than the loss to himself of a careless and easily robbed master. At all events I had been under the impression that I possessed a fuller store of linen than that which emerged from my travel-stained trunks when these were unpacked later in the day in the Rue des Palmiers.

As for that matter of ancestral dignity, it gave me no trouble. Such a possession comes, I think, to little harm while a man keeps it in his own hands, and only falls to pieces when it gets into the grasp of a bad woman. Have we not seen half a dozen, nay, a dozen, such débâcles in our own time? And I contend that the degenerate scion of a great house who goes to the wrong side of the footlights for his wife is a criminal, and deserves all that may befall him. I bade my friend, John Turner, farewell, he standing stoutly in his smoking-room after luncheon, and prophesying a discouraging and darksome future for one so headstrong.

"You're going to the devil," he said, "though you think you are running after an angel."

"I am going to earn my own livelihood," answered I, with a laugh, lighting the last excellent cigar I was to have from his box for some time, "and make my idle ancestors turn in their graves. I am going to draw emoluments of not less than one hundred and fifty pounds per annum."

I drove across the river with my simple baggage, and was in due course installed in my apartments. With these there was no fault to find—indeed, they were worthy of a better inmate. A large and airy bedroom looking out over the garden where the foliage, as I have said, had none of the mournful sables worn by the trees in London. The room was beautifully furnished. Even one who knew more of saddles than of Buhl and Empire could see that at a glance. Moreover, I noted that every ornament or handle of brass shone like gold.

"Madame's eyes have been here," thought I; "the clever eyes."

Adjacent to the bedroom was the study, which the Vicomte had pointed out as being assigned to his secretary—adjoining as it did the room whither he himself retired at times—not, as I suspected, to engage in any great labours there.

While I was in my bedroom, the smart young Paris servant came in, looked carelessly at my trunks, and was for withdrawing, when I stopped him.

"Is it the buckles you are afraid of?" I said. "Beware rather of the strap."

Therewith I threw my keys on the table before him and went into my study. When I revisited my room later I found everything neatly placed within the drawers and the empty trunks removed.

There were upon my study table a number of books and papers, placed there with such evident intention that I took cognizance of them, judging them to be the accounts rendered by the Vicomte's various estates. So far as a cursory examination could prove it, I judged that we had to deal with but clumsy scoundrels, and in France in those days scoundrels were of fine fleur, I can tell you, while every sort of villainy flourished there.

I was engaged with these books when the Vicomte entered, after knocking at the door. He referred to this courteous precaution by a little gesture indicating the panel upon which his knuckle had sounded.

"You see," he said, "this room is yours. Let us begin as we intend to go on."

If I was a queer secretary, here at all events was an uncommon master.

We fell to work at once, and one or two questions requiring immediate investigation came under discussion. I told him my opinion of his stewards; for I hated to see an old man so cheated. I lived, it will be remembered, in a glass house, and naturally was forever reaching my hand towards a stone. The Vicomte laughed in his kindly way at what he was pleased to term my high-handedness.

"Mon Dieu!" he cried; "what a grasp of steel. But they will be surprised—the bourgeois. I have always been so tolerant. I have ruled by kindness."

"He who rules by kindness is the slave of thieves," I answered, penning the letter we had decided to indite.

The Vicomte laughed and shrugged his shoulders.

"Well," he said, "so long as we begin as we intend to go on."

Such in any case was the beginning, and this my introduction to the duties I had undertaken. They seemed simple enough, and especially so to one who was no novice at the administration of an estate. For my father, in his softer moments—when, in fact, he had been brought to recognize that my vices were at least hereditary—had initiated me into the working of a great landed holding.

At seven o'clock we dined. Mademoiselle wore a white dress with a broad yellow ribbon round her girlish waist. Her sleeves—I suppose it was the fashion of the period—were wide and flowing, and her arms and hands were those of a child.

Madame de Clericy, I remember, did not talk much, saying little more, indeed, than such polite words as her position of hostess rendered necessary. The burden of the conversation rested chiefly with her aged husband, who sustained it simply and cheerily. His chief aim at this, and indeed at all times, seemed to be to establish an agreeable and mutual ease. I have seldom seen in a man, and especially in an old man, such consideration for the feelings of others.

Lucille's clear laugh was ever ready to welcome some little pleasantry, and she joined occasionally in the talk. I listened more to the voice than to the words. Her gay humour found something laughable in remarks that sounded grave enough, and I suddenly felt a hundred years old. As she walked demurely into the dining-room on her father's arm, I thought in truth that she would rather have skipped and run thither.

During dinner mention was made of the Baron Giraud, and I learnt that that financier was among the Vicomte's friends. The name was not new to me, although the Baron's personality was unknown.

The Baron was one of the mushrooms of that day—a nobleman of finance, a true product of Paris, highly respected and honoured there. John Turner knew him well, and was ponderously silent respecting him.

"But why," asked Lucille, when her father had delivered a little oration in favour of the rich man, "does Monsieur Giraud dye his hair?"

There was a little laugh and a silence at this display of naïve wisdom. Then it was Madame who spoke.

"No doubt he feels himself unworthy to wear it white," she said, rising from the table.

I was given to understand that the remainder of the evening was my own, and the Vicomte himself showed me the small staircase descending from the passage between my study and his own, and presented me with a key to the door at the foot of it. This door, he explained, opened to a small passage running between the Rue des Palmiers and the Rue Courte. It would serve me for egress and entry at any time without reference to the servants or disturbance to the house.

"I would not give the key to the first comer," he added.

I learnt later that he and I alone had access to the door of which the servants had no key, nor ever passed there. The same evening I availed myself of my privilege and went to my club, where over a foolish game of chance I won a year's salary.

Such was the beginning of my career in the service of the Vicomte de Clericy. During the weeks that followed I found that there was, in fact, plenty for me to do were the estates to be properly worked—to be administered as we Englishmen are called upon to treat our property to-day, that is to say, like a sponge, to be squeezed to its last drop. I soon discovered that the Vicomte was in the hands of old-fashioned stewards, who, besides feathering their own nests, were not making the best of the land. My conscience, it must be admitted, was at work again—and I had thought it finally vanquished.

Here was I, admitted to the Hôtel Clericy—welcomed in the family circle, and trusted there in the immediate vicinity of and with daily access to as innocent and trusting a soul as ever stepped from a French convent. I—a wolf who had not hitherto even troubled to cover my shaggy sides with a fleece. What could I do? Lucille was so gay, so confiding, in a pretty girlish way which never altered as we came to know each other better. Madame was so placid and easy-going—in her stout black silk dress, with her lace-work. Monsieur de Clericy gave me his confidence so unreservedly—what could I do but lapse into virtue? And I venture to think that many a blacker sheep than myself would have blanched in the midst of so pure a flock.

One evening Madame asked me to join the family circle in the drawing-room. The room was very pretty and homelike—quite unlike our grim drawing-room at Hopton, where my father never willingly set foot since its rightful owner had passed elsewhere. There were flowers in abundance—their scent filled the air—from the Var estate in Provence, which had been Madame's home and formed part of the dot she brought into the diminishing Clericy coffers. Two lamps illuminated the room rather dimly, and a pair of candles stood on the piano.

"YOU ARE SAD," SAID LUCILLE, WITH A LITTLE LAUGH, "WITH YOUR FACE IN YOUR HAND COMME ÇA."

Monsieur de Clericy played a game at bezique with Madame, who chuckled a good deal at her own mistakes with the cards, and then asked Lucille for some music. The girl sat down at the piano, and there, to her own accompaniment, without the printed score, sang such songs of Provence as tug at the heart strings, one knows not why. There seemed to be a wail in the music—and in slurring, as it were, from one note to the other—a trick such Southern songs demand—I heard the tone I loved.

Madame listened while she worked. The Vicomte dropped gently to sleep. I sat with my elbow on my knee and looked at the carpet. And when the voice rose and fell, I knew that none other had the same message for me.

"You are sad," said Lucille, with a little laugh, "with your face in your hand, comme ça."

And she imitated my position and expression with a merry toss of the head. "Are you thinking of your sins?"

"Yes, Mademoiselle," answered I, truthfully enough.

Many evenings I passed thus in the peaceful family circle—and always Lucille sang those gaily sad little songs of Provence.

The weeks slipped by, and the outer world was busy with great doings, while we in the Rue des Palmiers seemed to stand aside and watch the events go past.

The Emperor—than whom no greater man lived at the middle of the present century—was losing health, and, with that best of human gifts, his grasp over his fellowmen. The dogs were beginning to collect—the dogs that are ever in readiness to fall on the stricken lion.

I marvelled to discover how little the Vicomte interested himself in politics. One other discovery only did I make respecting my patron; I found that he loved money.

My conscience, as I have said, was busy at this time, and the burden of my deception began to weigh upon my mind as if I had been a mere schoolboy, and no man of the world. I might, however, have borne the burden easily enough if chance had not favoured the right.

I was one morning writing in Monsieur de Clericy's study, when the door was impetuously thrown open and Lucille came running in. "Ah!" she said, stopping, "only you."

"That is all, Mademoiselle."

She was turning to go when on an impulse of the moment I called to her.

"Mademoiselle!" She turned and slowly came back. With a little laugh she stood in front of me seated at the great table. She took up a quill pen, which I had laid aside a moment earlier, and played with it.

"What are you writing?" she asked, looking down at the papers before me—"your own history?"

As she spoke the pen escaped from her fingers and fell upon my papers, leaving ink stains there.

"There," she cried, with a laugh of mock despair, "I have spoilt your life."

"No; but you have altered its appearance," I answered. "Mademoiselle, I have something to say to you. When I came here I deceived your father. I told him that I was ruined—that my father had disowned me—that I was forced to earn my own livelihood. It was untrue—I shall one day be as rich as your father."

"Then why did you come here?" asked the girl, for a moment grave.

"To be near you."

And she broke into a laugh, shaking her head.

"I saw you in the crowd at the Fête Napoleon—I heard your voice. There is no one in the world like you. I fell in love, Mademoiselle."

Still she laughed, as if I were telling her an amusing story.

"And it is useless," I pursued, somewhat bitterly, perhaps. "I am too old?"

There was a little mirror on the mantelpiece. She ran and fetched it and held it in front of my face.

"Look," she cried merrily. "Yes, hundreds of years!"

With a laugh and flying skirts she ran from the room.

Chapter V

C'est la Vie

"Les querelles ne dureraient pas longtemps si le tort n'était d'un côté."

Monsieur Alphonse Giraud, unlike many men, had an aim in life—a daily purpose with which he rose in the morning at, it must be admitted, a shockingly late hour—without which he rarely sought his couch even when it was not reached until the foolish birds were astir.

The son of the celebrated Baron Giraud sought, in a word, to be mistaken for an Englishman—and what higher ambition could we, who modestly set such store upon our nationality, desire him to cherish?

In view of this praiseworthy object, Alphonse Giraud wore a mustache only, and this—oh! inconsistency of great minds—he laboriously twirled heavenwards in the French fashion. It was, in fact, the guileless Alphonse's chief tribulation that, however industriously he cultivated that devil-may-care upward sweep, the sparse ornament to his upper lip invariably drooped downwards again before long. In the sunny land of France it is held that the mustache worn "en croc" not only confers upon its possessor an air of distinction, but renders that happy individual particularly irresistible in the eyes of the fair. Readers of modern French fiction are aware that the heroes of those edifying tales invariably wear the mustache "hardiment retroussée," which habit doubtless adds a subtle charm to their singularly puerile and fatuous conversation imperceptible to the mere reader.

Alphonse Giraud was a small man, and would have given a thousand pounds for another inch, as he frankly told his friends. His outward garments were fashioned in London, whence also came his hats, gloves and boots. But within all these he was hopelessly and absolutely French. The English boots trod the pavement—they knew no other path in life—in a manner essentially Gallic. The check trousers, of a pattern somewhat loud and startling, had the mincing gait in them of any "pantalon de fantasie," purchased à prix fixe in the Boulevard St. Germain, across the water. It is useless to lift a Lincoln and Bennett from a little flat-topped head, cut, as they say, to the rat and fringed all over with black, upright hair.

But young Giraud held manfully to his purpose, and even essayed to copy the attitudes of his own groom, a thin-legged man from Streatham, who knew a thing or two, let him tell you, about a 'oss. There was no harm in Alphonse. There is, indeed, less harm in Frenchmen than they—sad dogs!—would have you believe. They are, as a rule, domesticated individuals, with a pretty turn for mixing a salad. Within the narrow but gay waistcoat of this son of Paris there beat as kind a little eager French heart as one may wish to deal with.

"Bon Dieu!" Alphonse would exclaim, when convinced that he had been robbed or cheated. "What will you? I am like that. I daresay the poor devil wanted the money badly—and I do not miss it."

There is a charity that gives, and another that allows the needy to take.

It was the Baron Giraud's great desire that Alphonse should be a gentleman of the great world, moving in his narrow orbit in the first circles of Parisian society, which was nothing to boast of in those days, and has steadily declined ever since. To attain such an eminence, the astute financier knew as well as any that only one thing was really necessary—namely, money. This he gave to his son with an open hand, and only gasped when he heard whither it went and how freely Alphonse spent it.

"There is plenty more," he said, "behind." And his little porcine eyes twinkled amid their yellow wrinkles. "I am a man of substance. You must be a man of position. But do not lend to the wrong people. Rather give to the right and be done with it. They will take it—bon Dieu! You need not shake your head. There is no man who will refuse money if you offer him enough."

And who shall say that the Baron Giraud was wrong?

A young man possessing a light heart and a heavy purse will never want a friend in this kind world of ours. And Alphonse Giraud possessed, moreover, a few of the better sort of friends, who had well-filled purses of their own, and wanted nothing from him but his gay laugh and good-fellowship. These were true friends, who did not scruple to tell him, when they encountered him in the Bois de Boulogne, afoot or on horseback, that while the right-hand side of his mustache was most successfully en croc, the other extremity of the ornament pointed earthwards. And, let it be remembered, that to tell a man of a defect in his personal appearance is always a doubtful kindness.

"Ah, heavens!" Alphonse would exclaim to these true comrades, "I have evil luck, and two minutes ago I bowed to the beautiful Comtesse de Peudechose in her buggy."

Alphonse affected the society of Englishmen, was a member of the clubs frequented by the sons of Albion resident in Paris, and sought the society of the young gentlemen of the Embassy. It was in the apartments of one of these that he made the acquaintance of Phillip Gayerson, a young fellow intended for the diplomatic service. Phillip Gayerson, be it known at once, was the brother of that Isabella Gayerson to whose hand, heart and estate the present chronicler was accredited by a fond father, and about whom, indeed, he had quarrelled with the author of his being.

The name of Dick Howard being at that time unknown to the little Frenchman, Alphonse Giraud made no mention of it to Gayerson a self-absorbed man, who had probably forgotten my existence at this time.

My countryman, as I afterwards learned, had come to Paris with the object of learning the language, which by reason of its subtlety lends itself most readily to diplomatic purposes, the most expressive language, to my thinking, that the world has yet evolved, not excepting the much-vaunted tongue in which Homer wrote. Phillip and I had been boys together, and of all the comrades of my youth I should have selected him the last to distinguish himself in statecraft. He was a quiet, unobservant, and, as previously noted, self-absorbed man, with a sense of the picturesque, which took the form of mediocre water-colour sketching. His appearance was in his favour, for he was visibly a gentleman; a man, moreover, of refined thought and habit, whom burly Norfolk squires dubbed effeminate.

Alphonse Giraud liked him—the world is sunny to those who look at it through sunny eyes—and took him up, as the saying goes, without hesitation. He procured for him an invitation to a semi-state ball, held, as some no doubt remember, in the autumn of 1869. It was Lucille de Clericy's first ball, and Giraud renewed there a childish friendship with one whose hair he confessed to have pulled in the unchivalrous days of his infancy.

Alphonse, who was of a frank nature, as are many of his countrymen, told Madame de Clericy, whom he escorted to the refreshment room after dancing with her daughter, that he loved Lucille.

"But my dear Alphonse," retorted that lady, "you had forgotten her existence until this evening."

This objection to his passion the lightsome Alphonse waived aside with a perfectly gloved little hand.

"But," he answered earnestly, "unknown to myself her vision must always have been here."

And he touched his shirt-front with the tips of his fingers gently, remembering the delicacy of his linen.

"It is an angel!" he added, with an upward glance of his bright little eyes, and tossed off a glass of champagne cup.

Madame de Clericy sipped her coffee slowly, and said nothing; but her eyes travelled downward from the crown of her companion's head to his dapper feet. And during that scrutiny there is little doubt that she reckoned the value of Monsieur Alphonse Giraud. What she saw was a pleasant spoken young man, plus twenty thousand pounds a year. No wonder the Vicomtesse smiled softly.

"And I," went on the Frenchman in half humorous humility, "what am I? Not clever, not handsome, not even tall!"

The lady shrugged her shoulders.

"C'est la vie," she said; a favourite reflection with her.

"Yes, and life and I are equal," replied Alphonse, with his gay laugh. "We are both short! And now I wish to present to you and to Lucille my best friend, Phillip Gayerson. He stands over there by the table, he in English clothes. He only arrived in Paris ten days ago, and speaks French indifferently. But he is charming, quite charming, my dearest friend."

"Did you know him before he came to Paris?"

"Oh, no! Excuse me. I will bring him."

Madame made no remark, but watched Giraud with her quiet smile as he went to seek this dear friend of eight days' standing.

Phillip Gayerson was distinguished by a slight shyness. It was as little known or understood in Paris in the decadent days of the Second Empire as it is now in the time of our own social collapse in England.

Thus, when the introduction was complete, Phillip Gayerson found that he had nothing to say to this elderly French lady, and was glad when Lucille came up, radiant on the arm of her partner. Alphonse presented his friend at once, and here Phillip felt more at his ease, being a better dancer than talker, and asked for the honour of a waltz without delay.

"I have but two left," answered Mademoiselle de Clericy, with a gay glance of happiness towards her mother. "They are at the end of the programme, and I promised to reserve them for Monsieur Howard."

She handed him her engagement card, in frank confirmation of this statement.

"R. H.," said Gayerson, deciphering the initials Lucille herself had scribbled. "If this is Dick Howard I will take the first of his two dances, and risk the consequence. It will not be the first time that Dick and I have fallen out."

"THEN YOU KNOW MR. HOWARD?" SAID LUCILLE, WITH ANOTHER GLANCE AT HER MOTHER. "YES," ... ANSWERED GAYERSON, BUT HAD NO TIME FOR MORE, FOR THE NEXT DANCE WAS GIRAUD'S, WHO WAS ALREADY BOWING BEFORE HER, AS BEFORE A DEITY.

He wrote his name over mine, and returned the card to its owner.

"Then you know Mr. Howard?" said Lucille, with another glance at her mother.

"Yes," ... answered Gayerson, but had no time for more, for the next dance was Giraud's, who was already bowing before her, as before a deity.

Madame de Clericy made a little movement, as if to speak to Gayerson, but that young gentleman failed to see the gesture, and moved away to find his partner for the coming waltz.

With the great people gathered at this assembly we have nothing to do, though the writer and the reader, no doubt, love to rub elbows with such lofty persons, if it be only in a public room. Many of them, be it noted, were not nearly so important as they considered themselves, and the greatness of some was built upon a base too frail to withstand the storm and stress of the coming years.

Through the brilliant throng Lucille moved gaily and happily, taking, with the faith of youth, dross for gold, and a high head for the token of a noble heart. When Phillip Gayerson claimed his dance he found her a little tired, but still dazzled and excited by the brilliance of the occasion.

"Is it not splendid?" she exclaimed, taking his arm. "It is my first ball. I am sure I shall never be too old to dance, as mother says she is. Is it not absurd to say such a thing?"

Gayerson laughed, and as was his wont—a habit, indeed, with many shy men—came straight to the point.

"Do you know Dick Howard, then?" he asked.

"Yes, a little. Has he arrived? This is his dance, you know."

"I cannot tell you if he has arrived, Mademoiselle," answered the Englishman, in his halting French. "I know him at home—in Norfolk. I was not aware that he was in Paris. But he will not be here to-night."

"Why?"

"Because his father is dead."

Lucille said nothing. She obeyed the movements of his arm, and they danced, mingling with that gay throng, where the feet were lighter than the hearts, we may be sure. They went through the whole dance in silence, as Phillip afterwards told me—and he tried in vain to engage Lucille's full attention to matters of passing interest.

"We must find my mother," she said at length, when the music had ceased. "Mr. Howard does not know. He has been travelling in the South with my father. His letters have not been forwarded to him."

Phillip Gayerson guided his partner through the laughing throng.

"It will be bad news for Dick," he said, "for his father has left him penniless."

"I understood," observed Lucille, looking attentively at her bouquet, "that he was wealthy."

"No. He quarrelled with his father, who left him without a sou. But Howard knew it before he quitted England."

Lucille did not speak again until they had joined her mother, to whom she said something so hurriedly that Gayerson did not catch the import of her words.

At this moment I entered the room, and made my way towards them, feeling more fit for my bed than a ball-room, for I had travelled night and day to dance a waltz with Lucille. As I approached, Gayerson bowed to the ladies and took his departure.

"My dance, Mademoiselle," I said, "if you have been so kind as to remember it."

"Yes," answered Lucille, coldly as it seemed, "but I am tired, and we are going home."

I looked towards Madame, and saw something in her face, I knew not what.

"Your arm, mon ami," she said, lifting her hand; "we had better go home."

Chapter VI

A Glimpse of Home

"Pour rendre la société commode il faut que chacun conserve sa liberté."

Those who have rattled over the cobble stones of old Paris will understand that we had no opportunity of conversation during our drive from the Tuileries to the Rue des Palmiers. Lucille, with her white lace scarf half concealing her face, sat back in her corner with closed eyes and seemed to be asleep. As we passed the street lamps their light flashing across Madame's face showed her to be alert, attentive and sleepless. On crossing the Pont Napoleon I saw that the sky behind the towers of Notre Dame was already of a pearly grey. The dawn was indeed at hand, and the great city, wrapped in a brief and fitful slumber, would soon be rousing itself to another day of gaiety and tears, of work and play, of life and death.

The Rue des Palmiers was yet still. A sleepy servant opened the door, and we crept quietly upstairs, lest we should disturb the Vicomte, who, tired from his great journey, had retired to bed while I changed my clothes for the Imperial ball.

"Good-night," said Lucille, without looking round at the head of the stairs. Madame followed her daughter, but I noticed that she gave me no salutation.

I turned to my study, of which the door stood open, and where a shaded lamp discreetly burned. I threw aside my coat and attended to the light. My letters lay on the table, but before I had taken them up the rustle of a woman's dress in a gallery drew my attention elsewhere.

It was Madame, who came in bearing a small tray, whereon stood wine and biscuits.

"You are tired out," she said. "You had no refreshment at the Tuileries. You must drink this glass of wine."

"Thank you, Madame," I answered, and turned to my letters, among which were a couple of telegrams. But she laid her quiet hand upon them and pointed with the other to the glass that she had filled. She watched me drink the strong wine, which was, indeed, almost a cordial, then took up the letters in her hands.

"My poor friend," she said, "there is bad news for you here. You must be prepared."

Handing me the letters, she went to the door, but did not quit the room. She merely stood there with her back turned to me, exhibiting a strange, silent patience while I slowly opened the letters and read that my father and I had quarrelled for the last time.

It was I who moved first and broke the silence of that old house. The daylight was glimmering through the closed jalousies, making stripes of light upon the ceiling.

"Madame," I said, "I must go home—to England—by the early train, this morning! May I ask you to explain to Monsieur le Vicomte."

"Yes," she answered, turning and facing me. "Your coffee will be ready at seven o'clock. And none of us will come downstairs until after your departure. At such times a man is better alone—is it not so? For a woman it is different."

I extinguished the useless lamp, and we passed round the gallery together. At the door of my bedroom she stopped, and turning, laid her hand—as light as a child's—upon my arm.

"What will you, my poor friend?" she said, with a queer little smile. "C'est la vie."

It is not my intention to dwell at length upon my journey to England and all that awaited me there. There are times in his life when—as Madame de Clericy said, with her wise smile—a man is better alone. And are there not occasions when the most eloquent of us is best dumb?

I had for travelling companion on the bright autumn morning when I quitted Paris my father's friend, John Turner—called suddenly to England on matters of business. He gave a grunt when he saw me in the Northern station.

"Better have taken my advice," he said, "to go home and make it up with your father, rather than stay here to run after that girl with the pretty hair—at your time of life. Avoid quarrels and seek a reconciliation—that is my plan. Best way is to ask the other chap to dinner and do him well. What are you going home for now? It is too late."

As, indeed, I knew without the telling. For when I reached Hopton my father had already been laid in the old churchyard beneath the shadow of the crumbling walls of the ruined church, which is now no longer used. They have built a gaudy new edifice farther inland, but so long as a Howard owns Hopton Hall, we shall, I think, continue to lie in the graveyard nearer to the sea.

I suppose we are a quarrelsome race, for I fell foul of several persons almost as soon as I arrived. The lawyers vowed that there were difficulties—but none, I protest, but what such parchment minds as theirs would pause to heed. One thing, however, was certain. Did I not read it in black and white myself? My obstinate old father—and, by gad! I respect him for it—had held to his purpose. He had left me penniless unless I consented to marry Isabella Gayerson. The estate was bequeathed in trust, to be administered by said trustees during my lifetime, unless I acceded to a certain matrimonial arrangement entertained for me. Those were the exact words. So Isabella had no cause to blush when the will was published abroad. And we may be sure that the whole county knew it soon enough, and vowed that they had always thought so.

"If one may inquire the nature of the matrimonial arrangement so vaguely specified?"... said the respectable Norwich solicitor who, like all his kind, had a better coat than his client, for those who live on the vanity and greed of their neighbours live well.

"One may," I replied, "and one may go to the devil and ask him."

The lawyer gave a dry laugh as he turned over his papers, and I make no doubt charged some one for his wounded feelings.

So the secret was kept between me and the newly raised stone in Hopton churchyard. And I felt somehow that there was a link between us in the fact that my father had kept the matter of our quarrel from the mouths of gossips and tattlers, leaving it to my honour to obey or disobey him, and abide by the result.

I am not one of those who think it right to remember their dead as saints who lived a blameless life, and passed away from a world that was not good enough for them. Is it not wiser to remember them as they were, men and women like ourselves, with faults in number, and a half-developed virtue or two, possessing something beyond copybook good or evil, which won our love in life, and will keep their memory green after death? I did not fall into the error of thinking that death had hallowed wishes which I had opposed in life; and while standing by my father's grave, where he lay, after long years, by the side of the fair girl whom I had called mother, I respected him for having died without changing his opinion, while recognising no call to alter mine.

The hall, it appeared, was to be held at my disposal to live in whenever I so wished, but I was forbidden to let it. A young solicitor of Yarmouth, working up, as they say, a practice, wrote to me in confidence, saying that the will was an iniquitous one, and presuming that I intended to contest its legality. He further informed me that such work was, singularly enough, a branch of the profession of which he had made a special study. I replied that persons who presumed rendered themselves liable to kicks, and heard no more from Yarmouth.

The neighbours were kind enough to offer me advice or hospitality, according to their nature, neither of which I felt inclined, at that time, to accept, but made some small return for their good will by inviting them to extend their shooting over the Hopton preserves, knowing that my poor old sire would turn in his grave were the birds allowed to go free.

Among others I received a letter from Isabella Gayerson, conveying the sympathy of her aged father and mother in my bereavement.

"As for myself," she wrote, "you know, Dick, that no one feels more keenly for you at this time, and wishes more sincerely that she could put her sympathy to some practical use. The hall must necessarily be but a sad and lonely dwelling for you now, and we want you to recollect that Fairacre is now, as at all times, a second home, where an affectionate welcome awaits you."

So wrote the subject of our quarrel, and in a like friendly tone I made reply. Whether Isabella was aware of the part she had played in my affairs, wiser heads must decide for themselves. If such was the case, she made no sign, and wrote at intervals letters of a spirit similar to that displayed in the paragraph above transcribed. On such affairs, men are but poor prophets in the strange country of a woman's mind. A small experience of the sex leads me, however, to suggest that, as a rule, women—ay, and schoolgirls—have a greater knowledge of such matters of the heart than they are credited with—that, indeed, women usually err on the side of knowing too much—knowing, in a word, facts that do not exist.

So disgusted was I with the whole business that I turned my back on the land of my birth and left the lawyers to fight over their details. I appointed a London solicitor to watch my interests, who smiled at my account of the affair, saying that things would be better settled among members of the legal profession—that my ways were not theirs. For which compliment I fervently thanked him, and shook the dust of London from off my feet.

The Vicomte de Clericy had notified to me by letter that my post would be held vacant and at my disposal for an indefinite period, but that at the same time my presence would be an infinite relief to him. This was no doubt the old gentleman's courteous way of putting it, for I had done little enough to make my absence of any note.

Travelling all night, I arrived in the Rue des Palmiers at nine o'clock one morning, and took coffee as usual in my study. At ten o'clock Monsieur de Clericy came to me there, and was kind enough to express both sympathy at my bereavement and pleasure at my return. In reply I thanked him.

"But," I added, "I regret that I must resign my post."

"Resign," cried the old gentleman. "Mon Dieu! do not talk of it. Why do you think of such a thing?"

"I am no secretary. I have never had the taste for such work nor a chance of learning to do it."

The Vicomte looked at me thoughtfully.

"But you are what I want," he replied. "A man—a responsible man, and not a machine."

"Bah," said I, shrugging my shoulders, "what are we doing—work that any could do. What am I wanted for? I have done nothing but write a few letters and frighten a handful of farmers in Provence."

The Vicomte de Clericy coughed confidentially.

"My dear Howard," he answered, looking at the door to make sure that it was closed. "I am getting an old man. I am only fit to manage my affairs while all is tranquil and in order. Tell me—as man to man—will things remain tranquil and in order? You know as well as I do that the Emperor has a malady from which there is no recovery. And the Empress, ah! yes—she is a clever woman. She has spirit. It is not every woman who would take this journey to Egypt to open the Suez Canal and make that great enterprise a French undertaking. But has a woman ever governed France successfully—from the boudoir or the throne? Look back into history, my dear Howard, and tell me what the end of a woman's government has always been."

It was the first time that my old patron had named politics in my hearing, or acknowledged their bearing upon the condition of private persons in France. His father had been of the emigration. He himself had been born in exile. The family prestige was but a ghost of its former self—and I had hitherto treated the subject as a sore one and beyond my province.

The Vicomte had sat down at my table. As for me, I was already on the broad window seat, looking down into the garden. Lucille was there upbraiding a gardener. I could see the nature of their conversation from the girl's face. She was probably wanting something out of season. Women often do. The man was deprecatory, and pointed contemptuously towards the heavens with a rake. There was a long silence in the room which was called my study.

"I think, mon ami," said my companion at length, "that there is another reason."

"Yes," answered I, bluntly, "there is."

I did not look round, but continued to watch Lucille in the garden. The Vicomte sat in silence—waiting, no doubt, for a further explanation. Failing to get this, he said, rather testily as I thought:

"Is the reason in the garden, my friend, that your eyes are fixed there?"

"Yes, it is. It is scolding the gardener. And I think I am better away from the Hôtel Clericy, Monsieur le Vicomte."

The old man slowly rose and came to the window, standing behind me.

"Oh—la, la!" he muttered in his quaint way—an exclamation uncomplimentary to myself; for our neighbours across channel reserve the syllables exclusively for their disasters.

We looked down at Lucille, standing amid the chrysanthemums, lending to their pink and white bloom a face as fresh as any of the flowers.

"But it is a child, mon ami," said the Vicomte, with his tolerant smile.

"Yes—I ought to know better, I admit," answered I, rising and attending to the papers on the writing table, and I laughed without feeling very merry. I sat down and began mechanically to work. At all events, my conscience had won this time—and if the Vicomte pressed me to stay, he did so with full knowledge of the danger.

The window was open. The Evil One prompted Lucille at that moment to break into one of those foolish little songs of Provence, and the ink dried on my pen.

STANDING AMID THE CHRYSANTHEMUMS, LENDING TO THEIR PINK AND WHITE BLOOM A FACE AS FRESH AS ANY OF THE FLOWERS.

The Vicomte broke the silence that followed.

"The ladies are going away for the winter months," he said. "They are going to Draguignan, in Var. At all events, stay with me until they return."

"I cannot think why you ever took me."

"An old man's fancy, mon cher. You will not forsake me."

"No."

Chapter VII

In Provence

"Autant d'amoureux, autant d'amours; chacun aime comme il est."

The chateau of La Pauline stands at the head of the valley of the Nartubie in the department of Var, and looks down upon Draguignan, the capital of that division of France. La Pauline, and its surrounding lands formed the dot of the Vicomtesse de Clericy, and the products of its rich terraces were of no small account in the family revenues.

It was to this spot that Lucille and her mother repaired in the month of December. Not far away the Baron Giraud had his estate—the modern castle of "Mon Plaisir," with its little white turret, its porcelain bas-reliefs in brilliant colours let into the walls, its artificial gardens ornamented with gold and silver balls, and summer-houses of which the windows were glazed with playful fancy that outdid nature in clothing the prospect in the respective hues of spring, summer, autumn and winter.

Very different from this was the ancient chateau of La Pauline, perched half-way up the mountain on a table-land—its grey stone face showing grimly against a sombre background of cypress trees. The house was built, as the antiquarians of Draguignan avow, of stone that was hewn by the Romans for less peaceful purposes. That an ancient building must have stood here would, indeed, be to some extent credible, from the fact that in front of the house lies a lawn of that weedless turf which is only found in this country in such places as the Arena at Fréjus. In the center of the lawn stands a sun dial—grey, green and ancient—a relic of those days when men lived by hours, and not by minutes, as we do to-day. It is all of the old world—of that old, old world of France beside which our British antiquities are, with a few exceptions, youthful. This was the birthplace of Madame de Clericy and of Lucille herself. Hither the ladies always returned with a quiet joy. There is no more peaceful spot on earth than La Pauline, chiefly, perhaps, because there is nothing in nature so still and lifeless as an olive grove. Why, by the way, do the birds of the air never build their nests in these trees—why do they rarely rest and never ring there? Behind La Pauline—so close, indeed, that the little chapel stands in the grey hush of the trees, guarded, of course, by a sentinel circle of cypresses—rise the olive terraces and stretch up, tier above tier, till the pines are reached. Below the grey house the valley opens out like a fan, and far away to the south the rugged crags of Roquebrune stand out against a faint blue haze, which is the Mediterranean.

No better example of Peace on Earth is to be found than La Pauline after sunset, at which time the olive groves are a silver fairyland—when the chapel bell tinkles in vain for the faithful to come to vespers—when the stout old placid curé sits down philosophically in the porch to read the office to himself, knowing well that a hot day in the vineyards turns all footsteps homewards.

When the ladies are in residence at the chateau, it is a different matter. Then, indeed, the curé lays aside his old soutane and dons that fine new clerical habit presented to him by Mademoiselle Lucille at the time of her first communion, when the Bishop of Fréjus came to Draguignan, and the whole valley assembled to do him honour there.

The ladies came, as we have said, in December, and at the gate the curé met them as usual—making there, as was his custom, a great hesitation as to kissing Lucille, now that she was a demoiselle of the great world, having—the rogue!—shaved with extraordinary care for that very purpose, a few hours earlier. Indeed, it is to be feared that the good curé did not always present so cleanly an appearance as he did on the arrival of the ladies. Here the family lived a quiet life among the peasants, who loved them, and Lucille visited them in their cottages, taking what simple hospitality they could offer her with a charm and appetite unrivalled, as the parishioners themselves have often told the writer. In these humble homes she found children with skins as white, with hair as fair and bright, as her own, and if the traveller wander so far from the beaten track, he can verify my statement. For in Var, by some racial freak—which, like all such matters, is in point of fact inexplicable—a large proportion of the people are of fair or ruddy complexions.

Had the Vicomtesse desired it, the neighbourhood offered society of a loftier, and, as some consider, more interesting, nature, but that lady did not hold much by social gatherings, and it was only from a sense of duty that she invited a few friends, about the time of Lucille's birthday—her twenty-first birthday, indeed—to pass some days at La Pauline.

These friends were bidden for the 26th December, and among them were the Baron Giraud and his son Alphonse.

Alphonse arrived on horseback in a costume which would have done credit to the head-groom of a racing stable. The right-hand twist of his mustache was eminently successful, but the left-hand extremity drooped with a lamentable effect, which he was not able to verify until after he had greeted the ladies, whom he met in the garden, as he rode toward the chateau.

"My father," he cried, as he descended from the saddle, "that dear old man, arrives on the instant. He is in a carriage—a close carriage, and he smokes. Picture it to yourselves—when there is this air to breathe—when there are horses to ride. Madame la Vicomtesse"—he took that lady's hand—"what a pleasure! Mademoiselle Lucille—as beautiful as ever."

"Even more so," replied Lucille with her gay laugh. "What exquisite riding-boots! But are they not a little tight, Alphonse?"

For Lucille could not perceive why playmates should suddenly begin to monsieur and mademoiselle each other after years of intimacy. This was the rock in that path which Alphonse, like the rest of us, found anything but smooth. Lucille was so gay. It is difficult to make serious love to a person who is not even impressed by English riding-boots.

"WHAT EXQUISITE RIDING-BOOTS! BUT ARE THEY NOT A LITTLE TIGHT, ALPHONSE?"

At this moment the Baron's carriage appeared on the zig-zag road below the chateau, and Madame de Clericy's face assumed an expression of placid resignation. In due time the vehicle, with its gorgeous yellow wheels, reached the level space upon which the party stood. The Baron Giraud emerged from the satin-lined recesses of the dainty carriage like a stout caterpillar from a rose, a stumpy little man with no neck and a red face. A straggling dyed mustache failed to hide an unpleasant mouth, with lips too red and loose. Cunning little dark eyes relieved the countenance of the Baron Giraud from mere animalism. They were intelligent little eyes, that looked to no high things and made no mistake in low places. But the Baron Giraud did not make one proud of the human race. This was a man who handled millions with consummate skill and daring, and by a certain class of persons he was almost worshipped. Personally, a 'longshore loafer who can handle a boat with the same intrepidity is to me a pleasanter object, though skill of any description must command a certain respect.

There were other guests to whom the Baron was presently introduced, and towards these he carried himself with the pomposity and hauteur which are only permissible to the very highest rank of new wealth. Lucille, as I learnt from Monsieur Alphonse later—indeed, our friendship was based on the patience with which I listened to his talk of that young lady—was dressed on this particular afternoon in white, but such matters as these bungled between two men will interest no one. Her hair she wore half in curls, according to the hideous custom of that day. Is it not always safe to abuse the old fashion? And at no time safer than the present, when the whole world gapes with its great, foolish mouth after every novelty. I remember that Lucille looked pretty enough; but you, mesdames, who laugh at me, are no doubt quite right, and a thousand times more beautiful in your mannish attire.

The guests presently dispersed in the shady garden, and the Baron accepted Madame's offer of refreshment on the terrace, whither a servant brought a tray of liqueurs. The pleasant habit of afternoon tea had not yet been introduced across the channel, and French ladies had still something to learn.

"Ah, Madame!" said the Baron Giraud in a voice that may be described as metallic, inasmuch as it was tinny, "these young people!"

With a wave of his thick white hand he indicated Alphonse and Lucille, who had wandered down an alley entirely composed of orange trees, where, indeed, a yellow glow seemed to hover, so thickly hung the fruit on the branches. Madame followed the direction of his glance with a non-committing bow of the head.

"I shall have to ask Monsieur le Vicomte what he proposes doing in the way of a 'dot,'" pursued the financier with a cackling laugh, which was not silvery, though it savoured of bullion. The Vicomtesse smiled gravely, and offered the Baron one of those little square biscuits peculiar to Fréjus.

"Madame knows nothing of such matters?"

"Nothing," answered she, meeting the twinkling eyes.

"Ah!" murmured the Baron, addressing, it would seem, the distant mountains. "Such details are not, of course, for the ladies. It is the other side of the question"—he laid his hand upon his waistcoat—"the side of the affections—the heart, my dear Vicomtesse, the heart."

"Yes," answered Madame, looking at him with that disquieting straight glance of hers—"the heart."

In the mean time—in the orange alley—Alphonse was attempting to get a serious hearing from Lucille, and curiously enough was making use of the same word as that passing between their elders on the terrace above them.

"Have you no heart?" he cried, stamping his foot on the mossy turf, "that you always laugh when I am serious—have you no heart, Lucille?"

"I do not know what you mean by heart," answered the girl with a little frown, as if the subject did not please her. And wiser men than Alphonse Giraud could not have enlightened her.

"Then you are incapable of feeling," he cried, spreading out his hands as if in invocation to the trees to hear him.

"That may be, but I do not see that it is proved by the fact that I am not always grave. You, yourself, are gay enough when others are by, and it is then that I like you best. It is only when we are alone that you are—tragic. Is that—heart, Alphonse? And are those who laugh heartless? I doubt it."

"You know I love you," he muttered gloomily, and the expression on his round face did not seem at home there.

"Well," she answered, with a severity gathered heaven knows whence—I cannot think they taught it to her in the convent—"you have told me so twice since you became aware of my continued existence at the ball last month. But you are hopelessly serious to-day. Let us go back to the terrace."

She stooped and picked up an orange that had fallen, throwing it subsequently along the smooth turf for her dog to chase.

"See," she said gaily, "Talleyrand will scarcely trouble to run now. He is so stout and dignified. He is afraid that the country dogs should see him. It is Paris. Paris spoils—so much."

"You know my father's plans concerning us," said Alphonse, after a pause, which served to set aside Talleyrand and the orange.

"The Baron's plans are, I am told, wonderful, but"—she paused and gave a little laugh—"I do not understand finance."

They walked up the steps together, between the trim borders, where spring flowers were already breaking into bud. On the terrace they found the Vicomtesse and the Baron Giraud. A servant was going towards the house carrying carelessly a small silver salver. The Baron was standing with an unopened envelope in his hand.

"You will permit me, Madame," they heard him say with his strident little self-satisfied laugh. "A man of affairs is the slave of the moment. And the affairs of state are never still. A great country moves even in its sleep."

Having the permission of Madame, he tore open the envelope, enjoying the importance of the moment. But his face changed as soon as his glance fell on the paper.

"The government has fallen," he gasped, with white lips and a face wherefrom the colour faded in blotches. He seemed to forget the ladies, and looked only at his son. "It may mean—much. I must go to Paris at once. The place is in an uproar. Mon Dieu—where will it end!"

He excused himself hurriedly, and in a few minutes his carriage rattled through the grey stone gateway.

"An uproar in Paris," repeated Lucille, anxiously, when she was alone with her mother. "What does he mean? Is there any danger? Will papa be safe?"

"Yes," answered the Vicomtesse quietly; "he will be safe, I think."

Chapter VIII

In Paris

"Le plus grand art d'un habile homme est celui de savior cacher son habileté."

It will be necessary to dwell to a certain extent on those events of the great world that left their mark on the obscure lives of which the present history treats. An old man may be excused for expressing his opinion—or rather his agreement with the opinions of greater minds—that our little existence here on earth is but part of a great scheme—that we are but pawns moved hither and thither on a vast chess-board, and that, while our vision is often obscured by some knight or bishop or king, whose neighbourhood overshadows us, yet our presence may affect the greater moves as certainly as we are affected by them.

I first became aware of the fact that my existence was amenable to every political wind that might blow a week or so after Lucille went to La Pauline, without, indeed, vouchsafing an explanation of her sudden coldness.

In my study I was one evening smoking, and, I admit it, thinking of Lucille—thinking very practically, however. For I was reflecting with satisfaction over some small improvements I had effected—with a Norfolk energy which, no doubt, gave offence to some—during the short time that the Vicomte and I had passed in the Provençal chateau. I had the pleasant conviction that Lucille's health could, at all events, come to no harm from a residence in one of the oldest castles in France. No very lover-like reflections, the high-flown will cry. So be it. Each must love in his own way. "Air and water—air and water!" the Vicomte had cried when he saw the men at work under my directions. "You Englishmen are mad on the subject."

While I was engaged in these thoughts the old gentleman came to my room, and in the next few minutes made known to me a new and unsuspected side of his character. His manner was singularly alert. He seemed to be years younger.

"I said I should want a man at my side—young and strong," he began, seating himself. "Let us understand each other, Mr. Howard."

"By all means."

He gave a little laugh, and leaning forward took a quill pen from my writing-table, disliking idle fingers while he talked.

"That time has come, my friend. Do you mean to stand by me?"

"LET US UNDERSTAND EACH OTHER, MR. HOWARD."

"Yes."

"You are a man of few words," he answered, looking at me with a new keenness which sat strangely on his benign features. "But I want no more. The government has fallen—the doctors say the Emperor's life is not worth that!"

And he snapped his finger and thumb, glancing at the clock. It was eight o'clock. We had dined at half-past six.

"Can you come with me now? I want to show you the state of Paris—the condition of the people, the way of their thoughts. One cannot know too much of the ... people—for they will some day rule the world."

"And rule it devilish badly," I added, putting my papers together.

"We shall be late in returning," the Vicomte said to the servant who held the carriage door. I had heard—through my thoughts—the stamping of the horses in the courtyard and the rattle of the harness, but took no great note of them, as the Vicomte had the habit of going out in the evening. I noticed we never crossed the river during our silent drive. A river has two sides, just as a street, and one of them is usually in the shade. It was among the shadows that our business lay this evening.

"You know," said the Vicomte, as we climbed the narrow staircase of a quiet house in the neighbourhood of the great wine stores that adjoin the Jardin des Plantes—"you know that this is the day of the talkers—the Rocheforts, the Pyats—the windbags. Mon Dieu, what nonsense! But a windbag may burst and do harm. One must watch these gentry."

Republicanism was indeed in the air at this time. And has not history demonstrated that those who cry loudest for a commonwealth are such as wish to draw from that wealth and add nothing to it? The reddest Republican is always the man who has nothing to lose and all to gain by a social upheaval.

I was not surprised, therefore, when we found ourselves in a room full of bad hats and unkempt heads. A voice was shouting their requirements. I knew that they wanted a wash more than anything else.

The room was a large, low one, and looked larger through an atmosphere blue with smoke and the fumes of absinthe. The Vicomte—a little man, as I have said—slipped in unperceived. I was less fortunate, being of a higher stature. I saw that my advent did not pass unobserved on the platform, where a party of patriots sat in a row, like the Christy Minstrels, showing the soles of their boots to all whom it might concern. In this case a working cobbler would have been deeply interested, as in a vast field of labour. The Vicomte slipped a few yards away from me, and the shoulders of his fellow-countrymen obscured him. I could find no such retreat, for your true Socialist never has much to recommend him to the notice of society, being usually a poor, mean man to look at, who seeks to add a cubit to his stature by encouraging the growth of his hair.

One such stood on the platform, mouthing the bloodthirsty periods of his creed. He caught sight of me.

"Ah!" he cried, "here is a new disciple. And a hardy one! Un grand gaillard, my brethren, who can strike a solid blow for liberty, equality and fraternity. Say, brother, you are with us; is it not so?"

"If you open the casements, not otherwise," I answered. The French crowd is ever ready for blood or laughter. I have seen the Republic completely set in the background by a cat looking in a window and giving voice to the one word assigned to it by nature. Some laughed now, and the orator deemed it wise to leave me in peace. I took advantage of my obscurity to look around me, and was duly edified by what I saw. The Paris vaurien is worth less than any man on earth, and these were choice specimens from the gutter.

We were wasting our time in such a galley, and as I thus reflected a note was slipped into my hand.

"Follow me, but not at once." I read and hid the paper in my pocket. Without staring about me too much, I watched the Vicomte make his way towards a door half hidden by a dirty curtain—another to that by which we had entered. Thither I followed him after a decent interval—no one molesting me. One of the patriots on the platform seemed to watch me with understanding, and when I reached the curtained doorway, my glance meeting his, he dismissed me with his eyelids.

I found myself in a dark passage, and with his gentle laugh the Vicomte took my arm.

"All that out there," he whispered, "is a mere blind. It is in the inner room that they act. Out there they merely talk. Come with me. Gently—there are two steps—my dear Howard. These are the men—he paused with his fingers on the handle of a door—who will rule France when the Emperor is dead or deposed."

With that we entered, and those assembled—some sitting at a table, others standing about the room—saluted the Vicomte de Clericy almost as a leader. Some of the faces I knew—indeed, they are to be found in the illustrated histories of France. The thoughts of others were known to me, for many were journalists of repute—men of advanced views and fiery pens. Perhaps, after all, I knew as little of the Vicomte de Clericy as of any man there. For he seemed to have laid aside that pleasant and garrulous senility which had awakened my dull conscience.

Although he did not deliver a speech during the proceedings, as did some, his attitude was rather that of a leader than of a mere on-looker. Here was no mere watching, thought I. My patron was known to all, and went from group to group talking in the ear of many. There was, indeed, much talking as I have always found in the world, and but little listening. The Vicomte introduced me to some of his friends.

"Mr. Howard," he said, "an English gentleman who is kind enough to act as my secretary. Mr. Howard is too wise to trouble himself with politics."

And I thought some of them had a queer way of looking at me.

"A deceiver or a dupe?" I heard one ask another, trusting too far the proverbial dulness of British ears.

The topic of the evening was, of course, the fall of the ministry—a matter of great moment at that time, and, it may be, through all the ages—though a recital of its possible effects would be but dull reading to-day. When a chain is riven, the casual on-looker takes but small interest in the history of each link. This event of December, 1869, was in truth an important link in the chain of strange events that go to make up the history of the shortest and most marvellous of the great dynasties of the world.

I stood among those politicians and wondered what the greatest of their race at that time living thought of these matters in the Tuileries Palace hard by. I could picture him sitting, as was his wont—a grave man with a keen sense of humour—with his head a little on one side, his large, still face drawn and pale—the evidence of his malady around his dull eyes. Was the game played out? The greatest since that so gloriously won—so miserably lost at length—by his uncle. The Bonapartes were no common men—and it was no common blood that trickled unstanched ten years later into the sand of the African veldt, leaving the world the poorer of one of its greatest races.

I gathered that the fall of the ministry was no great surprise to these men assembled in this inner room. They formed, so far as I could discover, a sort of administration—a committee which gathered the opinions of the more intelligent citizens of the larger towns of France—a head-center of news and public thought. Their meeting place was furnished without ostentation, and in excellent taste.

These were no mere adventurers, but men of position and wealth, who had somewhat to lose and every desire to retain the same. They did not rave of patriotism, nor was there any cant of equality and fraternity. It seemed rather that, finding themselves placed in stirring times, they deemed it wise to guide by some means or other the course of events into such channels as might ensure safety to themselves and their possessions. And who can blame them for such foresight? Patriots are, according to my experience, men who look for a substantial quid pro quo. They serve their country with the view of making their country serve them.

Whatever the usual deliberations of the body among whom I found myself might be, the all-absorbing topic of the evening set all else aside.

"We approach the moment," cried one, a young man with a lisping intonation and great possessions, as I afterwards learnt. "Now is the time for all to do as I have done. I have sent everything out of the country. I and my sword remain for France."

He spoke truly. He and his sword now lie side by side—in French soil.

"Let all do the same," growled an old man, with eyes flashing beneath his great white brows.

"All who know," suggested one, significantly. Whereupon arose a great discussion, and many names were uttered that were familiar to me—among others, indeed, that of my friend, John Turner. I noticed that many laughed when his name was mentioned.

"Oh!" they cried. "You may leave John Turner to care for his own affairs. Il est fin celui-là."

Again a familiar name fell on my ears, and this was received with groans and derisive laughter. It was that of the Baron Giraud. I gathered that there was question of warning certain financiers and rich persons outside of this circle of some danger known only to the initiated. Indeed, the wealthy were sending their money out of the country as fast and as secretly as possible.

"No, no," cried the young man I have mentioned; "the Baron Giraud—a fine Baron, heaven knows!—has risen with the Empire—nor has he been over-scrupulous as to whom he trod underfoot. With the Empire he must fall."

And one and all fell to abusing the Baron Giraud. He was a thief, and a despoiler of the widow and orphan. His wealth had been acquired not honestly, but at the expense,—nay, at the ruin—of others. He was an unwholesome growth of a mushroom age—a bad man, whose god was gold and gain his only ambition.

"If such men are to grow in France and govern her, then woe to France," cried one prophetic voice.

Indeed, if half we heard was true of the Baron Giraud, he must have been a fine scoundrel, and I had little compunction in agreeing that he deserved no consideration at the hands of honest men. The cooler heads deemed it wise to withhold from the Baron certain details of the public feeling, not out of spite, but because such knowledge could not be trusted in notoriously unscrupulous hands. He would but turn it to money.

For the greater safety, all present bound themselves upon honour not to reveal the result of their deliberations to certain named persons, and the Baron Giraud had the privilege of heading this list. I was surprised that no form of mutual faith was observed. These men seemed to trust each other without so much as a word—and indeed, what stronger tie can men have than the common gain?

"We are not conspirators," said one to me. "Our movements are known."

And he nodded his head in the direction of the Tuileries. I made no doubt that all, indeed, was known in that quarter, but the fatalist who planned and schemed there would meet these men the next day with his gentle smile, betraying nothing.

As my interest became aroused by these proceedings, I became aware of the Vicomte's close scrutiny. It seemed that he was watching me—noting the effect of every speech and word.

"You were interested," he said, casually, as we drove home smoking our cigars.

"Yes."

He looked out of the carriage window for some time, and then, turning, he laid his hand on my knee.

"And it is not a game," he said, with his little laugh, which somehow sounded quite different—less senile, less helpless. "It is not a game, my friend!"

Chapter IX

Finance

"Il n'est pas si dangereux de faire du mal à la plupart des hommes que de leur faire trop de bien."

We have seen how the Baron Giraud was called suddenly away from those pleasures of the country, which he had taken up too late in life, as many do, to the busy—ay, and stormy—scenes of Paris existence during the winter before the great war. It was perhaps a week later—one morning, in fact, soon after the New Year—that my business bade me seek the Vicomte in his study adjoining my own. These two apartments, it will be remembered, were separated by two doors and a small intervening corridor. In the days when the Hôtel Clericy was built, walls had ears, and every keyhole might conceal a watching eye. Builders understood the advantage of privacy, and did not construct rooms where every movement and every spoken word may be heard in the adjoining chambers.

No sound had come to me, and I had no reason for supposing the Vicomte engaged at so early an hour. But as I entered the room, after knocking and awaiting his permission as usual, I saw that some one was leaving it by the other door. His back was presented to my sight, but there was no mistaking the slim form and a nonchalant carriage. Charles Miste again! And only the back of him once more.

"I have had a visit from my late secretary," said the Vicomte, casually, and without looking up from his occupation of opening some letters. There was no reason to suppose that he had seen me glance towards the closing door, recognising him who went from it.

We were still engaged with the morning's correspondence, when a second visitor was announced, and almost on the heels of the servant a little fat man came puffing into the room, red-faced and agitated.

"Ah! Heaven be thanked that I have found you in," he gasped, and although it was a cold morning, he wiped his pasty brow with a gorgeous silk handkerchief whereupon shone the largest coronet obtainable.

His face was quite white and flaccid, like the unbaked loaves into which I had poked inquiring fingers in my childhood, and there was an unwholesome look of fear in his little bright eyes. The Baron had been badly scared, and lacked the manhood to conceal his panic.

"Ah! Mon Dieu, mon Dieu!" he gasped again, and looked at me with insolent inquiry. He was, it must be remembered, a very rich man, and could afford to be ill-mannered. "I must see you, Vicomte."

"You do see me, my friend," replied the old nobleman, in his most amiable manner. "And at your service."

"But—" and the fluttering handkerchief indicated myself.

"Ah! Let me introduce you. Monsieur Howard, my secretary—the Baron Giraud."

I bowed as one only bows to money-bags, and the Baron stared at me. Only very rich or very high-born persons fully understand the introductory stare.

"You may speak before Monsieur Howard," said the Baron, quietly. "He is not a secretary pour rire."

Had Miste been a secretary pour rire, I wondered?

I drew forward a chair and begged the Baron to be seated. He accepted my invitation coldly, and seating himself seemed to lose nothing in stature. There are some men who should always be seated. It is, of course, a mistake to judge of one's neighbour at first sight, but it seemed to me that the Baron Giraud only wanted a little courage to be a first-class scoundrel. He fumbled in his pocket, glancing furtively at me the while. At length he found a letter, which he handed to the Vicomte.

"I have received that," he said. "It is anonymous, as you will see, and cleverly done. There is absolutely no clue. It was sent to my place of business, and my people there telegraphed for me in Provence. Of course I came at once. One must sacrifice everything to affairs."

Naturally I acquiesced fervently, for the last remark had been thrown to me for my good.

The Vicomte was looking for his spectacles.

"But, my friend," he said, "it is atrociously written. One cannot decipher such a scrawl as this."

In his impatience the Baron leant forward, and taking the paper from my patron, handed it to me.

"Here," he said, "the secretary—read it aloud."

Nothing loth, I read the communication in my loudest voice. The world holds that a loud voice indicates honesty or a lack of brain, and the Baron was essentially of that world. The anonymous letter was a warning that a general rising against the rule of the Emperor was imminent, and that in view of the probable state of anarchy that would ensue, wise men should not delay in transferring their wealth to more stable countries. Precisely—in a word—the information that it had been decided to withhold from the recipient of the letter.

THE BARON BLEW AND PUFFED LIKE A PRIZE-FIGHTER WHEN I HAD FINISHED THE PERUSAL. "THERE," HE CRIED; "I RECEIVE A LETTER LIKE THAT—I, THE BARON GIRAUD—OF THE HIGH FINANCE."

The Baron blew and puffed like a prize-fighter when I had finished the perusal.

"There," he cried; "I receive a letter like that—I, the Baron Giraud—of the high finance."

"My poor friend, calm yourself," urged the Vicomte.

It is easy enough to tell another to calm himself, but who among us can compass such a frame of mind when he is hit in a vital spot? The Baron wiped his forehead nervously.

"But," he said, "is it true?"

The Vicomte spread out his hands, and never glanced at me as an ordinary man would have done towards one who shared his knowledge.

"Who can tell—but yes! So far as human foresight goes—it is true enough."

"Then what am I to do?"

I stared at the great financier asking such a question. Assuredly he, of all men, needed no one's counsel in a matter of money.

"Do as I have done," said the Vicomte; "send your money out of the country."

An odd look came over the Baron's face. He glanced from one of us to the other—with the cunning, and somewhat the look, of a cat. The Vicomte was blandly indifferent. As for me, I had, I am told, a hard face in those days—hardened by weather and a disbelief in human nature which has since been modified.

"It is a responsibility that you take there," said the financier.

"I take no responsibility. A man of my years, of my retired life, knows little of such matters." (I thought he looked older as he spoke.) "I only tell you what I have done with my small possessions."

The Baron shook his head with a sly scepticism. After all, the cheapest cunning must suffice for money-making, for I dare swear this man had little else.

"But how?" he said.

"In bank notes, by hand," was the Vicomte's astonishing answer. And the Baron laughed incredulously. It seems that the highest aim of the high finance is to catch your neighbour telling the truth by accident. It would almost be safe to tell the truth always, so rarely is it recognised.

It was not until the Vicomte produced his bankbook and showed the amounts paid in and subsequently withdrawn that the Baron Giraud believed what he had been told. My duties, it may be well to mention in passing, had no part in the expenditure of the Vicomte de Clericy. I had only to deal with the income derived from the various estates, and while being fully aware that large sums had been placed within the hands of his bankers, I had not troubled to be curious respecting the ultimate destination of such moneys. My patron possessed, as has already been intimated, a lively—nay, an exaggerated—sense of the value of money. He was, indeed, as I remember thinking at this time, somewhat of a miser, loving money for its own sake, and not, as did the Baron Giraud, merely for the grandeur and position to be purchased therewith.

"But I am not like you," said the financier at length.

"No; you have a thousand louis for every one that I possess."

"But I have nothing solid—no lands, no estates except my chateau in Var."

His panic had by no means subsided, and presently he found himself on the verge of tears—a pitiable, despicable object. The Vicomte—soothing and benevolent—went on to explain more fully the position of his own affairs. He told us that on information received from a sure source he had months earlier concluded that the Emperor's illness was of a more serious nature than the general public believed.

"You, my dear friend," he said, "engaged as you have been in the affairs of the outside world—the Suez Canal, Mexico, the Colonies—have perhaps omitted to watch matters nearer home. While looking at a distant mountain one may fall over a little stone—is it not so?"

He had, he informed us, withdrawn his small interest in such securities as depended upon the stability of the Government, but that for men occupying a public position, either by accident of birth or—and he bowed in his pleasant way towards the Baron—by the force of their genius, to send their money out of France by the ordinary financial channels would excite comment, and perhaps hasten the crisis that all good patriots would fain avoid. He talked thus collectedly and fairly while the Baron Giraud could but wipe his forehead with a damp handkerchief and gasp incoherent exclamations of terror.

"I could realize a couple of million," said the financier, "in two days, but there is much that I cannot sell just now—the fall of the government makes it necessary to hold much that I could have sold at a profit a fortnight ago."

The Vicomte was playing with a quill pen. How well I knew the action! It seemed that the millionaire was recovering from his shock, of which re-establishment the outward and visible sign was a dawning gleam of cunning in the eyes.

"But I have no one I can trust," he said; and I almost laughed, so well the words bespoke the man. "It is different for you," he added; "you have—Monsieur."

And he glanced keenly at me. Indeed, we were a queer trio; and I began to think that I was as big a scoundrel as my maiden aunts maintained.

"I would trust Mr. Howard with all my possessions," said the old Vicomte, looking at me almost affectionately; "but in this matter I have found another messenger, less valuable to me personally, less necessary to my comfort and daily happiness, but equally trustworthy."

"And if I gave him twenty million francs to take abroad for me—?" suggested the great financier.

"Then, my friend, we should be in the same boat—that is all."

"Your boat," said the Baron, with an unpleasant laugh.

Monsieur de Clericy shrugged his shoulders and smiled. This grave political crisis had rejuvenated him, and he seemed to rise to meet each emergency with a buoyancy that sat strangely on white hairs.

They talked together upon the fascinating topic, while I, who had no part in the game, sat and listened. The Baron was very cunning, and, as it seemed to me, very contemptible. With all the vices that are mine, I thank heaven that I have never loved money; for that love, it seems, undermines much that is manly and honest in upright hearts. Money, it will be remembered, was at the root of the last quarrel I had with my father—the last fatal breach, which will have to be patched up in another world. Money has, as it will be seen by such as care to follow me through these pages, dogged my life from beginning to end. I have run my thick head against those pursuing it, each in his different manner, getting lamentably in their way, and making deadly enemies for myself.

Monsieur de Clericy, in his frank and open way, gave fuller details of his own intentions. It seemed that his possessions were at that moment in the house—in a safe hiding-place; that the messenger was to make several journeys to London, carrying at one time a sum of money which would be no very pleasant travelling companion. A safe depository awaited the sums in England, and, in due course, reinvestment would follow. Money, it will be suspected, was by now beginning to be somewhat of a red rag for me, and I thought I saw some signs of its evil influence over my kindly patron. He spoke of it almost as if there were nothing else on earth worth a man's consideration. In the heat of argument he lowered his voice, and was no longer his open, genial self.

What astonished me most, however, was the facility with which the Baron made a catspaw of him. For the old Vicomte slowly stepped down as it were from his high standpoint of indifference, and allowed himself to be interested in the financier's schemes. It was out of keeping with the attitude which my patron had assumed a few days earlier at the meeting which we had attended, and I was more than ever convinced that the Vicomte was too old and too simple to hold his own in a world of scoundrels.

The Baron led him on from one admission to another, and at last it was settled that twenty millions of francs were to be brought to the Hôtel Clericy and placed in the Vicomte's keeping. To my mind the worst part of the transaction lay in the fact that the financier had succeeded in saddling my patron with a certain moral responsibility which the old man was in no way called upon to assume.

"Then," he said, "I may safely leave the matter thus in your hands? I may sleep to-night?"

"Ah!" replied the other. "Yes—you may sleep, my friend."

"And Monsieur shares the responsibility?" added the upstart, turning to me.

"Of course—for all I am worth," was my reply, and I did not at the time think that even the Vicomte, whose faculties were keener in such matters, saw the sarcasm intended by the words.

"Then I am satisfied," the Baron was kind enough to say; and I thought that his low origin came suddenly to the fore in the manner in which he bowed. A low origin is like an hereditary disease—it will bear no strain.

"By the way," he said, pausing near the door, having risen to go, "you have not told me the name of your trusted messenger."

And before the Vicomte opened his lips the answer flashed across my mind.

"Charles Miste," he said.

Chapter X

The Golden Spoon

"Nous avons tous assez de force pour supporter les maux d'autrui."

A few days later I received a letter from Madame de Clericy. "I write," it ran, "to tell you of the satisfaction that Lucille and I have found in the improvements you initiated here. I laugh—mon ami—when I think of all that you did in three days. It seems as if a strong and energetic wind—such as I imagine your English breezes to be—had blown across my old home, leaving it healthier, purer, better; leaving also those within it somewhat breathless and surprised. I suppose that many Englishmen are like you, and suspect that they will some day master the world. We have had visitors, among others Alphonse Giraud, whom I believe you do not yet know. If contrasts are mutually attractive, then you will like him. I wonder if you know, or suspect, that he is more or less an acknowledged aspirant to Lucille's hand, but—"

Madame de Clericy had run her pen through the last word, leaving it, however, legible. And here she began a new subject, asking me, indeed, to write and give her news of the Vicomte. I am no indoor man or subtle analyst of a motive—much less of a woman's motive, if, indeed, women are so often possessed of such, as some believe—but the obliterated word and Madame de Clericy's subsequent embarkation on a new subject made me pause while I deciphered her letter.

It had originally been arranged that the Vicomte should follow the ladies to La Pauline, leaving me in Paris to attend to my duties, but the sudden political crisis led to a delay in his departure. In truth, I gathered from Madame's letter that he must have written to her saying that the visit was at present impossible. Madame, in fact, asked me to advise her by return of the state of the Vicomte's health, and plainly told me that if business matters were worrying him she would return to Paris without delay.

And if Madame returned she would bring Lucille with her, and thus put an end to the aspirations of Alphonse Giraud, for the prosecution of which the seclusion of La Pauline afforded excellent opportunity. I had but to write a word to bring all this about. Did Madame de Clericy know all that she placed within my power? Did she know, and yet place it there purposely? Who can tell? I remembered Lucille's coldness—her departure without one word of explanation. I recollected that the twenty million francs at that moment in the Hôtel Clericy would, in due course, be part of Alphonse Giraud's fortune. I was mindful, lastly, that in England we are taught to ride straight, and I sat down and wrote to Madame that her husband was in good health, and that I quite hoped to see him depart in a few days for La Pauline. I will not deny that the letter went into the post-box followed by a curse.

We may, however, write letters and post them. We may—if we be great men—indite despatches and give them into the hands of trusty messengers, and a little twirl of Fortune's wheel will send all our penmanship to the winds.

While I was smoking a pipe and deciphering a long communication received from the gentleman who further entangled my affairs in England, a visitor was announced to me.

"Monsieur Alphonse Giraud."

"Why?" I wondered as I rose to receive this gentleman. "Why, Monsieur Alphonse Giraud?"

He was already in the doorway, and, I made no doubt, had conceived an ultra-British toilet for the occasion. For outwardly he was more English than myself. He came forward, holding out his hand, and I thought of Madame's words. Were we to become friends?

"Monsieur Howard," he said, "I have to apologise. Mon Dieu!—to think that you have been in Paris three months, and I have never called to place myself at your disposition! And a friend of Alfred Gayerson, of that good, stout John Turner—of half a dozen hardy English friends of mine."

I was about to explain that his oversight had a good excuse in the fact that my existence must have been unknown to him, but he silenced me with his two outstretched hands, waving a violent negation.

"No—no!" he said, smiting himself grievously on the chest. "I have no excuse. You say that I was ignorant of your existence—then it was my business to find it out. Ignorance is often a crime. An English gentleman—a sportsman—a fox-hunter! For you chase the fox, I know. I see it in your brown face. And you belong to the English Jockey Club—is it not so?"

I admitted that it was so, and Alphonse Giraud's emotion was such that he could only press my hand in silence.

"Ah, well!" he cried almost immediately, with the utmost gaiety. "We have begun late, but that is no reason why it should not be a good friendship—is it?"

And he took the chair I offered with such hearty good-will that my cold English sympathy was drawn towards him.

"I came but yesterday from the South," he went on. "Indeed, from La Pauline, where I have been paying a delightful visit. Madame de Clericy—so kind—and Mademoiselle Lucille—"

He twisted up the unsuccessful side of his mustache, and gave a quick little sigh. Then he remembered his scarf, and attended to the horseshoe pin that adorned it.

"You know my father," he said, suddenly, "the—er—Baron Giraud. He has been more fortunate than myself in making your acquaintance earlier."

I bowed and said what was necessary.

"A kind man—a dear man," said the Baron's son. "But no sportsman. Figure to yourself—he fears an open window."

He laughed and shrugged his little shoulders.

"I dare say many Englishmen would not understand him."

"I am not of those," replied I. "I understand him and appreciate his many able qualities."

From which it will be seen that I can lie as well as any man.

"The poor dear has been called to Paris, on his affairs. Not that I understand them. I have no head for affairs. Even my tailor cheats me—but what will you? He can cut a good coat, and one must forgive him. My father's hotel in the Champs Elysées is uninhabitable at the moment. The whitewashers!—and they sing so loud and so false, as whitewashers ever do. The poor man is desolated in an appartement in the Hôtel Bristol. I am all right. I have my own lodging—a mere bachelor kennel—where I hope to see you soon and often."

He threw his card on the table, rising to go, and timing his departure with that tact and grace which is only compassed by Frenchmen or Spaniards.

Scarcely had I regained my room, after duly admiring Alphonse Giraud's smart dog-cart, when the servant again appeared. The Baron Giraud had arrived to see the Vicomte, who happened to be out. The affairs of the Baron were urgent, and he desired to see me—was, indeed, awaiting me with impatience in Monsieur de Clericy's study.

Thither I hastened, and found the great financier in that state of perturbation and perspiration which the political crisis seemed to have rendered chronic. He was, however, sufficiently himself to remember that I was a paid dependent.

"How is this?" he cried. "I call to see the Vicomte on important affairs, and he is out."

"It is," I replied, "that the Vicomte de Clericy is not a man of affairs, but a gentleman of station and birth—that this is not an office, but a nobleman's private house."

And I suppose I looked towards the door, for the Baron gasped out something that might have been an apology, and looked redder in the face.

"But, my good sir," he whined distractedly, "it is a matter of the utmost gravity. It is a crisis in the money market. A turn of the wheel may make me a poor man. Where is the Vicomte? Where are my twenty million francs?"

"The Vicomte has gone out, as is his custom before déjeûner, and your twenty millions are, so far as I know, safe in this house. I have not the keeping of either."

"But you took the responsibility," snapped the Baron.

"For all that I am worth—namely, one hundred and twenty pounds a year, out of which I have to find my livery."

"Can you go out and find the Vicomte? I will wait here," asked the Baron, in the utmost distress. It is indeed love that makes the world go round—love of money.

"I know where he is usually to be found," was my reply, "and can go and seek him. I will return here in half an hour if I fail to find him."

"Yes—yes; go, my good sir—go! And God be with you!" With which inappropriate benediction he almost pushed me out of the room.

On making inquiries of the servants, I found my task more difficult than I had anticipated. Monsieur de Clericy had not taken the carriage, as was his habit. He had gone out on foot, carrying, as the butler told me, a bundle of papers in his hand.

"They had the air of business papers of value—so closely he held them," added the man.

He had taken the direction of the Boulevard, with the intention, it appeared, of calling a cab. I hurried, however, to the Vicomte's favourite club, and learned that he had not been seen there. His habits being more or less known to me, I prosecuted my search in such quarters as seemed likely, but without success.

At the Cercle de l'Union I ran against John Turner, who was reading the Times there.

"Ah!" he said, "young Howard. Come to lunch, I suppose. You look hungry—gad, what a twist you had that day! Just in time. I can tell you what is worth eating."

"Thanks; you know such advice is wasted on a country boor like myself. No; I came seeking the Vicomte de Clericy. Have you seen him?"

"Ah! you are still with old Clericy; thought you were up to some mischief—so d—d quiet. Then Mademoiselle is kind?"

"Mademoiselle is away," I answered. "Do you know anything of the Baron Giraud?"

"Do I know anything of the devil," growled John Turner, returning to the perusal of his newspaper. "Are he and old Clericy putting their heads together? I would not trust Giraud with ten sous so far as the club door."

"Exactly!"

"Then he and old Clericy are at it—are they?" said John Turner, looking at me over the Times with his twinkling eyes. "And you, Monsieur, le secrétaire, are anxious about your patron. Ha, ha! You have a lot to learn yet, Master Dick."

I looked impatiently at the clock. Twenty minutes had already been wasted in my fruitless search.

"Then you haven't seen de Clericy?"

"No—my good boy—I haven't. And if you cannot find him you may be sure that it is because he does not want to be found."

The words followed me as I left the room. It seemed that John Turner believed in no man.

There was nothing for it but to return to the Rue des Palmiers, and tell the Baron that I had failed to find my patron. The cab I had hired was awaiting me, and in a few minutes I was rattling across the bridge of the Holy Fathers.

"Monsieur le Vicomte returned a few minutes ago," the butler told me. "He has gone to the study, and is now with the Baron Giraud. The Vicomte asked that you should go to him at once."

The atmosphere of the old house seemed gloomy and full of foreboding as I ran up the stairs. The servant stood at the open door and watched me. In that unknown world behind the green baize door more is known than we suspect, and there is often no surprise there when we who live above stairs are dumbfounded.

In my haste I forgot to knock at Monsieur de Clericy's door before opening it—indeed, I think it was ajar.

"My good friend," I heard as I entered the room, "collect yourself. Be calm. We are together in a great misfortune—the money has been stolen!"

The voice was that of my patron. I went in and closed the door behind me. For it seemed, to my fancy, that there were other doors ajar upon the landing, and listeners on the stairs.

The two old men were facing each other, the one purple in the visage, with starting eyes, the other white and quiet.

"Stolen?" echoed the Baron in a thick voice, and with a wild look round the room. "Then I am ruined!"

The old Vicomte spread out his trembling hands in despair, a gesture that seemed to indicate a crumbling away of the world beneath us.

The Baron Giraud turned and looked at me. He did not recognise me for quite ten seconds.

"IT IS DEATH," I ANSWERED, WITH MY HAND INSIDE THE BARON'S SHIRT. "WHO STOLE THAT MONEY?" THE VICOMTE LOOKED AT ME. "CHARLES MISTE," HE SAID.

"Then it is not you," he said, thickly. "As you are there. You did not steal it."

"No—I did not steal it," I answered quietly, for there was a look in his face that I did not understand, while it frightened me. Suddenly his eyes shot red—his face was almost black. He fell forward into my arms, and I tore his collar off as I laid him to the ground.

"Ah, mon Dieu, mon Dieu!" the Vicomte was crying as he ran hither and thither, wringing his hands, while I attended, unskillfully enough, to the stricken man. "Ah, mon Dieu! what is this?"

"It is death," I answered, with my hand inside the Baron's shirt. "Who stole that money?"

The Vicomte looked at me.

"Charles Miste," he said.

Chapter XI

Theft

"La fortune ne laisse rien perdre pour les hommes heureux."

I thus returned Alphonse Giraud's visit sooner than either of us anticipated, for I had to go and tell him what had happened in the Rue des Palmiers. I delivered my news in as few words as possible, and cannot tell how he took the evil tidings, for when I had spoken I walked to the window, and there stood looking down into the street.

"Have you told me all?" asked Giraud at length, wondering, perhaps, that I lingered.

"No."

I turned and faced him, the little French dandy, in his stiff collar and patent-leather boots—no bigger than a girl's. The politeness of our previous intercourse seemed to have fallen away from us.

"No—I have not told you all. It seems likely that you, like myself, have been left a poor man."

"Then we have one reason more for being good friends," said Giraud, in his quick French way.

He rose and looked round the room.

"All the same, I have had a famous time," he said. "Come, let us go to my father."

We found the Hôtel Clericy in that state of hushed expectation which follows the dread visit in palace and hut alike. The servants seemed to have withdrawn to their own quarters to discuss the event in whispers there. We found the Vicomte in my study, still much agitated and broken. He was sitting in my chair, the tears yet wet upon his wrinkled cheek. There was a quick look of alertness in his eyes, as if the scythe had hissed close by in reaping the mature grain.

"Ah! my poor boy—my poor boy," he cried when he saw Alphonse, and they embraced after the manner of their race.

"And it is all my fault," continued the broken old man, wringing his hands and sinking into his chair again.

"No!" cried Alphonse, with characteristic energy. "We surely cannot say that, without questioning—well—a wiser judgment than ours."

He paused, and perhaps remembered dimly some of the teaching of a good, simple bourgeoise who had died before her husband fingered gold. I sought to quiet the Vicomte also. Old men, like old clothes, need gentle handling. I sat down at my table and began to write.

"What are you doing?" asked the Vicomte, sharply.

"I am telegraphing to Madame de Clericy to return home."

There was a silence in the room while I wrote out the message and despatched it by a servant. The Vicomte made no attempt to stop me.

"Here," he said, when the door was closed—and he handed Giraud the key of his own study. "The doctors and—the others—have placed him in my room—that is the key. You must consider this house as your own until the funeral is over; your poor father's house, I know, is in disorder."

Monsieur de Clericy would have it that the Baron should be buried from the Rue des Palmiers, which Alphonse Giraud recognised as in some sort an honour, for it proclaimed to the world the esteem in which the upstart nobleman was held in high quarters.

"I am glad," said my patron, with that air of fatherliness which he wore towards me from the first, "that you have telegraphed for my wife—the house is different when she is in it. When can she be here?"

"It is just possible that she may be with us to-morrow at this time—by driving rapidly to Toulon."

"With promptitude," muttered the Vicomte, musingly.

"Yes—such as one may expect from Madame."

The Vicomte looked up at me with a smile.

"Ah!—you have discovered that. One is never safe with you men who know horses. You find out so much from observation."

But I think it is no great thing to have discovered that one may usually look for prompt action in men and women of a quiet tongue.

Lucille's name was not mentioned between us. My own desires and feelings had been pushed into the background by the events of the last few days, and he is but half a man who cannot submit cheerfully to such treatment at the hand of Fate from time to time.

During the day we learnt further details respecting the theft of the money, amounting in all to rather more than eight hundred thousand pounds of our coinage. Miste, it appeared, had been instructed to leave Paris by the eight o'clock train that morning for London, taking with him a large sum. The Vicomte had handed him the money the previous evening.

"I carelessly replaced the remainder in the drawer of my writing-table," my patron told us, "before the eyes of that scoundrel. I went to the drawer this morning, having been uneasy about so large a sum—it was arranged that I should see Miste off from the Gare du Nord. Figure to yourselves! The drawer was empty. I hastened to the railway station. Miste was, of course, not there."

And he rocked himself backwards and forwards in the chair. What trouble men take for money—what trouble it brings them! So distressed was he that it would perhaps have been wiser to change the current of his thoughts, but there was surely work here for an idle man like myself to do.

"How was the money to be conveyed?" I asked.

"In cheques of ten thousand pounds each, drawn by John Turner on various European and American bankers in favour of myself."

"And you had indorsed these cheques?"

"No."

"Then how can Miste realise them?" I asked.

"By forgery—my friend," replied the Vicomte sadly. Which was true enough. I thought of Monsieur Miste's graceful figure—of his slim neck, and longed to get my fingers around it. I had only seen his back, after all—and had a singular desire to know the look of his face. I am no great reader, but have met some words which go well with the thoughts I harboured at this time of Monsieur Charles Miste, for I could

"Read rascal in the motions of his back,
And scoundrel in the subtle sliding knee."

Seeing that I had risen, the Vicomte asked me where I was going, in a tone of anxiety which I had noted in his voice of late, and, in my vanity, attributed to the fact that he was in some degree dependent upon myself.

"I am going to see John Turner, and then I am going to seek Charles Miste until I find him."

Before I knew what had happened, Alphonse Giraud was shaking my hand, and would have embraced me had he not remembered in time his English clothes, and the reserve of manner usually observed inside such habiliments.

"Ah! my friend," he said, desperately, "the world is large."

"Yes; but not roomy enough for Monsieur Charles Miste and your humble servant."

I spent the remainder of the day with John Turner, who was cynical enough about the matter, but gave me, nevertheless, much valuable information.

"You may be sure," he said, "that I did not sign the cheques until Clericy and the Baron had handed over the equivalent in notes and gold. One man's scare is another man's profit."

And my stout friend chuckled. He heard my plans and laughed at them.

"Very honourable and fine, but out of date," he said. "You will not catch him, but you will, no doubt, enjoy the chase immensely, and in the mean time you will leave a clear field for Alphonse Giraud auprès de Mademoiselle."

I instituted inquiries the same evening, and determined to await the result before setting off to seek Miste in person. Nor will I deny that this decision was brought about, in part, by the reflection that Madame de Clericy and Lucille might arrive the following morning.

At the Lyons station the next morning I had the satisfaction of seeing the two ladies step from the Marseilles express. Lucille would scarcely look at me. During the drive to the Rue des Palmiers I acquainted Madame with the state of affairs, and she listened to my recital with a grave attention and a quiet occasional glance into my face which would have made it difficult to tell aught but the truth.

When we reached home Alphonse Giraud had gone out; the Vicomte was still in his room. He had slept little and was much disturbed, the valet told us. As we mounted the stairs, I saw the two ladies glance instinctively towards the closed door of the Vicomte's study. We are all curious respecting death and vice. Madame went straight to her husband's apartment. At the head of the stairs the door of the morning-room stood open. It was the family rendezvous, where we usually found the ladies at the luncheon hour.

Lucille went in there, leaving the door open behind her. I have always rushed at my fences, and have had the falls I merited. I followed Lucille into the sunlit room. She must have heard my footsteps, but took no notice—walking to the window, and standing there, rested her two hands on the sill while she looked down into the garden.

"Mademoiselle!"

She half turned her head with a little haughty toss of it, looking not at me, but at the ground beneath my feet.

"Well, Monsieur?"

"In what have I offended you?"

She shrugged her shoulders, and I, looking at her as she stood with her back to me, knew again and always that the world contained but this one woman for me.

"Since I told you of my feeling towards yourself," I went on, "and was laughed at for my pains, I have been careful not to take advantage of my position in the house. I have not been so indiscreet again."

She was playing with the blind-cord in an attitude and humour so youthful that I had a sort of tugging at the heart.

"Perhaps, though," I continued, "I have offended in my very discretion. I should have told you again—that I love you—that you might again enjoy the joke."

She stamped her foot impatiently.

"Of course," she said, "you are cleverer than I—you can be sarcastic, and say things I do not know how to answer."

"You can at least answer my question—Mademoiselle."

She turned and faced me with angry eyes.

"Well—then. I do not like the ways of English gentlemen."

"Ah!"

"You told me that you were not poor, but rich—that you had not become my father's secretary because such a situation was necessary, but—but for quite another reason."

"Yes."

"And I learn immediately afterwards from Mr. Gayerson that you are penniless, and must work for your living."

"Merely because Alfred Gayerson knew more than I did," I replied. "I did not know that my father in the heat of a passing quarrel had made such a will—or, indeed, could make it if he so desired. I was not aware of this when I spoke to you—and, knowing it now, I must ask you to consider my words unsaid. You may be sure that I shall not refer to them again, even with the hope of making you merry."

She laughed suddenly.

"Oh," she said, "I find plenty to amuse me—thank you. You need not give yourself the trouble. D'ailleurs," she paused and looked at me with a quick and passing gravity, "that has never been your rôle, Monsieur l'Anglais—you are not fitted for it."

She pulled a long face—such as mine, no doubt, appeared in her eyes—and left me.

I had business that took me across the Seine during the morning, and lunched at a club—so did not again see the ladies until later in the day. The desire of speech with Alphonse Giraud on a matter connected with his father's burial took me back to the Rue des Palmiers in the afternoon, when I learnt from the servant that the Baron's son had returned, and was, so far as he knew, still in the house. I went to the drawing-room and there found Madame alone.

"I am seeking Monsieur Alphonse Giraud," I said.

"Whose good genius you are."

"Not that I am aware of, Madame."

"No," she said, slowly, "that is just it. In a crowded street the strongest house does not know how many weaker buildings are leaning against it. Alphonse Giraud is not a strong house. He will lean against you if you permit it. So be warned."

"By my carelessness," I answered, "I have done Alphonse Giraud a great injury—I have practically ruined him. Surely the least I can do is to attempt to recover for him that which he has lost."

Madame de Clericy was of course engaged in needlework. I never saw her fingers idle. It appeared that at this moment she had a difficult stitch to execute.

"One never knows," she said, without looking up, "what is the least or the most that men can do. We women look at things in a different light, and therefore cannot say what is right or what is wrong; it is better that men should judge for themselves."

"Yes," I said.

"Of course," said Madame de Clericy quietly, "if you recover Alphonse's fortune you will earn his gratitude, for without it the Vicomte would never recognise his pretensions to Lucille's hand."

"Of course," I answered; and Madame's clever eyes were lifted to my face for a moment.

"You think it the least you can do?"

"I do," said I. "Can you tell me if Alphonse Giraud is in this house?"

MADAME LOOKED AT ME AGAIN. AND I MADE MY INQUIRIES ELSEWHERE.

"No; I cannot."

"Perhaps Mademoiselle Lucille—"

"Perhaps. You can ask her—if you like."

Madame looked at me again. And I made my inquiries elsewhere.

Chapter XII

Ruin

"Il ne faut regarder dans ses amis que la seule vertu qui nous attache à eux."

If the Baron Giraud was unable in the nature of human affairs to take his wealth with him, it accompanied him, at all events, to the grave, where feathers made a fine show of grief, where priests growled consolatory words, and cherub-faced boys swung themselves and censers nonchalantly along. Some who owed their wealth to Giraud sent their empty carriages to mourn his decease; others, with a singular sense of fitness, despatched wreaths of tin flowers to be laid upon his grave.

The Vicomte had been early astir that morning; indeed, I heard him moving before daylight in the room where the coffin was. I was glad when that same morning dawned, for my kind old patron seemed unhinged by these events, and could not keep away from the apartment where the Baron lay.

There was, of course, no keeping him from the funeral, which ceremony I also attended, and if ever earth was laid to earth it was when we consigned the great financier to his last resting-place. Alphonse Giraud, in his absurd French way, embraced me when the last carriage drove away from the gates of Père la Chaise.

"And now, mon ami," he said, with a sigh of relief, "let us go and lunch at the club."

He meant no disrespect towards his departed sire. It was merely that his elastic nature could not always be at a tension. His quick bright face was made for smiles, and naturally relaxed to that happy state. He clapped me on the back.

"You are my best friend," he cried.

And I had, indeed, arranged the funeral for him. Those who had honoured the ceremony with their presence showed much sympathy for Alphonse. They pressed his hand; some of them embraced him. A few—elderly men with daughters—told him that they felt like fathers towards him. All this Alphonse received with a bland innocence which his Parisian education had no doubt taught him.

When they were gone, rattling away in their new carriages, he looked after them with a laugh.

"And now," he said, "for ruin. I wonder what it will be like—new at all events. And we all live for novelty nowadays. There is the price of a luncheon at the club, however. Come, my friend, let us go there."

"One change you must, at all events, be prepared for," I said, as we stepped into his carriage. "A change of friends."

Alphonse understood and laughed. Cynicism is an arid growth, found to perfection on the pavement, and this little Frenchman wore his boots out thereon.

During luncheon my host recovered his spirits; although, to do him justice, he was melancholy enough when he remembered his recent loss. Once or twice he threw down his knife and fork, and for quite three minutes all food and drink were nauseous to him.

"Ah!" he cried, "that poor old man. It tears the heart to think of him."

He sat for a few moments with his chin in the palm of his hand, and then slowly took up again the things of this life, wielding them heartily enough.

"I wonder," he went on in a reflective voice, "if I did my duty towards him. It was not difficult, only to make a splash and spend money, and I did that—beautifully!"

"Coffee and chartreuse," he said to the waiter, when we had finished. "And leave the bottle on the table. You know," he added, addressing me, his face beaming with conscious pride, his hand laid impressively on my arm—"you know this club drinks chartreuse in claret glasses. It is our great distinguishing feature."

While religiously observing this law we fell to discussing the future.

"One cannot," observed my companion, philosophically, "bring on the thunder-storm, however heavy the air may be. One can only gasp and wait. I suppose the crash will come soon enough. But tell me how I stand; I have not had time to think the last few days."

He had, indeed, thought only of others.

"We have," answered I, "done all that is possible to stop the payment of these cheques; but a clever villain might succeed in realising them one by one in different parts of the world, and thus outwit us."

"I wonder how it is," said my companion, afloat on a side issue like any woman, "that a fool like myself—an incompetent ass with no brains, eh?—always finds such a friend as you."

He leant forward and tapped me on the chest in his impulsive way, as if sounding that part of me.

"A solid man," he added, apparently satisfied with the investigation.

"I do not know," answered I, truthfully enough; "unless it be that solid men are fools enough to place themselves in such a position."

"How have you placed yourself in such a position? When you have finished that cup of coffee—you have no sugar, by the way—you have but to take your hat and—'Bon jour.' You leave me still in your debt."

With a few quick gestures he illustrated his argument, so that I saw myself—somewhat stiff and British, with my hat upon my head—quit the room, having wished him good day, and leaving him overwhelmed in my debt in a chair.

"I told your father that I would share the responsibility as regarded the safety of his money," I replied. "It was said only half in earnest, but he took it seriously."

"Ah! the poor, dear man! He always took money matters seriously," put in Alphonse.

"I am, at all events, going to try to recover your wealth for you. Besides, I have a singular desire to twist the neck of Monsieur Charles Miste. I ought to have known that the Vicomte was too old to be trusted with the arrangement of affairs such as that. Your father knew it, but thought that I was taking an active part in the matter. I was a fool."

"Ah!" said Alphonse Giraud. "We are all fools, mon cher, or knaves."

And long afterwards, remembering the words, I recognised that truth often bubbles to the lips of irresponsible people.

I told him of my plans, which were simple enough, for I had called in the aid of men whose profession it was to deal with scoundrels. It is only until we know vice that we think it complicated or interesting. There is really no man so simple as your thorough scoundrel. A picture all shade is less difficult to comprehend than one where light and shade are mingled. I had only asked to be put on the track of Charles Miste, for evil men, like water, run in one channel and one direction only. I wished to deal with him myself, law or no law. Indeed, there had been a sufficiency of law and lawyers in my affairs already.

"And I will help you," exclaimed Alphonse Giraud, when he had heard, not without interruption, my proposed plan of campaign. "I will go with you."

"No; you cannot do that. You may be sure that Miste has accomplices who will, of course, watch you, and warn him the moment they suspect you of being on the right scent. Whereas I am nobody. Miste does not even know me. I wish I knew him."

And I remembered with regret how ignorant I was.

"Besides," I added, "you surely have other calls. The Vicomte requires some one near him—the ladies will be glad of your advice and assistance."

He was scarcely the man to whom I should have applied for either, but one can never tell with women. Some of them look up to us when we know in our hearts that we are no better than asses.

We talked of details which may well be omitted here, for the majority of them were based upon assumptions subsequently to be proved erroneous. It seemed that Alphonse Giraud had almost given up hope of recovering his lost wealth, and as I raised this anew in his breast so his face grew graver. A great hope makes a grave face.

"You must not," he said, "make me believe that, unless you have a good foundation for your own faith."

"Oh, no!" I answered, and instinctively changed the subject. His gravity disturbed me.

But he returned to his thought again and again.

"It is not the money," he said at length, when I, who knew what was coming, could no longer hold him. "It is—" he paused, his face suddenly red as he looked hard into his coffee-cup. "It is Lucille."

I made no answer, and it was Alphonse who spoke again, after a pause.

"What a hard face you have, mon ami!" he said. "I never noticed it before. I pity that poor Miste, you know—if you catch him."

The same evening I spoke to my old patron, whom I found in the morning-room, where he sat alone and in meditation. The doors of his own study were still locked, and no one was allowed to enter there. His manner was so feverish and unnatural that I almost abandoned my project of leaving the Rue des Palmiers.

"Ah!" he said, "what a terrible day—and that poor Alphonse! How did you leave him?"

I thought of Alphonse as I had left him, smiling under his mourning hat-band, waving a black glove gaily to me in farewell.

"Oh," I answered, "Alphonse will soon be himself again."

"Ah, my friend," exclaimed the Vicomte, after a sorrowful pause. "The surprises of life are all unpleasant. Pfuit!" he spread out his hands suddenly as if indicating a quick flight, "and I lose a friend and four hundred thousand francs in the twinkling of an eye. To think that a mere shock can kill a man as it killed the poor Baron."

"He had no neck, and systematically ate too much," I said. "I am now going to see if we cannot repair some of the harm that has been done."

"How?" asked the old man, with all the suspicion that had recently come into his character.

"I am going to look for Miste."

He shook his head.

"Very quixotic, but quite useless," said he; and then set himself to dissuade me from my quest with every argument that he could bring to bear upon me. Some of these, indeed, I thought he might well have omitted.

"We cannot spare you at this time, when the political world is so disturbed, and internal affairs are on the brink of catastrophe. We cannot spare you, I, the Vicomtesse—Lucille. It was only last night that she was rejoicing at your presence with us in our time of trouble. I shall tell her that you wish to leave us, and she will, I am sure, dissuade you."

Which threat he carried out, as will be recorded later. I was, however, fixed in my determination, and only gave way in so far as to promise to return as soon as possible. These details are recorded thus at length, as they are all links of a chain which pieced itself together later in my life. Such links there are in the story of every human existence, and no incident seems to stand quite alone.

After dinner that evening I went to my own study, leaving the Vicomte to join the ladies in the drawing-room without me. So far as I was able I had arranged during the last few days the affairs which had been confidingly placed in my care, and desired to leave books and papers in such a condition that a successor could at once take up the thread of management.

The Vicomte was so disturbed at the mention of my departure that the topic had been carefully avoided during dinner, though I make no doubt that he knew my purpose in refusing to go to the drawing-room.

I was at work in my room—between the two tall candles—when the rustle of a woman's dress in the open doorway made me look up. Lucille had come into the room—her eyes bright, her cheeks flushed. And I knew, or thought I knew, her thoughts.

"My father tells me that you are going to leave us," she said in her impetuous way.

"Yes, Mademoiselle."

"I have come to ask you not to do so. You may—think what you like."

I did not look at her, but guessed the expression of her determined lips.

"And you are too proud," I said, "to explain. You think that I, like a schoolboy, am going off in a fit of wounded vanity—pleased to cause a little inconvenience, and thus prove my own importance. You think that it is yourself who sends me away, and your father cannot afford to lose my services at this time. You consider it your duty to suppress your own feelings, and tread under foot your own pride—to serve the Vicomte. Your pride further prompts you to give me permission to think what I like of you. Thank you, Mademoiselle."

I was making pretence, in a shallow way no doubt, to study the papers on the table, and Lucille standing before my desk was looking down at my bent head, noting perhaps the grey hairs there. Thus we remained for a minute in silence.

Then turning, she slowly left the room, and I would have given five years of my life to see the expression of her face.

Chapter XIII

The Shadow Again

"Qui ne craint pas la mort craint donc la vie."

As I sat in my study, the sounds of the house gradually ceased, and the quiet of night settled down between its ancient walls. It seemed to me at times that the Vicomte was moving in his own room. I knew, however, that the passage between us was locked on both sides. My old patron had said nothing to me on the subject, but I had found the door bolted and the key removed. I never was the man to intrude upon another's privacy, and respected the Vicomte's somewhat incomprehensible humour at this time.

I scarcely knew at what hour I at last went to bed; but the oil in my lamp was nearly exhausted and the candles had burnt low. Taking up one of these, I went to my bedroom, pausing at the head of the black staircase to listen as one instinctively does in a great silence. The household was asleep. A faint patter broke the stillness; Lucille's dog—a small white shadow in the gloom—came towards me from her bedroom, outside of which he slept. He looked up at me with a restrained jerk of the tail, for we were always friends, and his expression said:

"Anything wrong?"

He glanced back over his shoulder to Lucille's door, as if to intimate that his own charge was, at all events, safe; then he passed me, and pressed his inquiring nose to the threshold of the Vicomte's study door. He was a singular little dog, with a deep sense of responsibility, which he only laid aside in Lucille's presence. In which he resembled his betters. Men are usually at ease of mind in the presence of one woman only. At night I often heard him blowing the dust from his nostrils at the threshold of my door, whither he came to satisfy himself that I was in my room and all well in the house before he sought his own mat.

When I went softly to my bedroom he was still sniffing at the study door.

I must have slept a couple of hours only when my door handle was quietly turned, and, being a light sleeper, I became aware of a presence in the room before a touch was laid upon my shoulder. It was Madame de Clericy.

"Where is my husband?" she asked, and added: "I thought he was sitting up with you."

"No; I have been alone all the evening," answered I, with a quick feeling of uneasiness.

"I do not think that he is in the house at all," said Madame, moving towards the door. "Will you get up and dress? You will find me in the morning-room."

Lighting my candle, this woman of few words left me. The dawn was creeping up over the opposite roof and through the open window; the freshness of the March air made me shiver as I hurried into my clothes. In the morning-room I found Madame de Clericy.

"Mother," Lucille had once said to me, "always rises to the occasion, but the process is not visible."

"Come quietly," said Madame, speaking, as indeed was her habit in regard to myself, with a certain kindness and sympathy—"come quietly; for Lucille is asleep. I have been to see."

She took it for granted that she and I should consider Lucille before all else, and the assumption gave me pleasure. Although she said "Come," she stood aside and allowed me to lead the way. We naturally went first to the study. The door was locked. At the entrance from my own room we were again met by bars.

"Can you break it open?" asked Madame.

"Not without noise. Let us make sure that he is not elsewhere in the house first."

Together we went up and down the old dwelling, and I traversed many corridors and chambers for the first time. We found nothing. It was beginning to get light when we returned to my study.

"Shall I break open the door?" I asked, when I had unbarred the shutters.

"Yes," answered Madame.

The door was a solid one of walnut, and not to be broken open by mere pressure. While I was moving some of the chairs in order to give myself a run, Lucille came into the room. She had hurried on a dressing-gown and her hair was all down her back, but she was much too simple-minded to think that such things mattered at such a moment.

"What is it?" she cried. "What are you doing?"

Madame explained, and the two stood hand in hand while I made ready to burst in upon the mystery that lay behind that closed door.

I took a run, and brought my shoulder to bear just above the lock, wrenching the four screws out of the wood by the force of the blow. I staggered into the dark passage beyond, with a sore shoulder and my heart in my mouth. Madame and Lucille followed. I tried the handle of the door leading from the passage to the Vicomte's study. The key had not been turned.

"I will go in alone," I said, laying a hand on Madame's arm, who gave me a candle and made no attempt to follow me.

MADAME EXPLAINED, AND THE TWO STOOD HAND IN HAND WHILE I MADE READY TO BURST IN UPON THE MYSTERY THAT LAY BEHIND THAT CLOSED DOOR.

After all, the precaution was unnecessary, for the room was empty.

"You may come," I said; and the ladies stood in the dimly lighted chamber. None of us had entered there since the Baron Giraud had come to occupy it in his coffin. The dust was thick on the writing-table. Some flowers, broken from the complimentary wreaths, lay on the floor. The air was heavy. I kicked the withered lilies towards the fireplace, and looked carefully round the room. The furniture was all in order. Madame went to the window and threw it open. A river steamer, moving cautiously in the dawning light, cast its booming note over the housetops towards us. The frog in the fountain—a family friend—was croaking comfortably in the courtyard below us.

"Lucille, my child," said Madame, quietly, "go back to bed. Your father is not in the house. It will explain itself to-morrow."

But the face that Madame turned towards me, when her daughter had reluctantly left us, was not one that looked for a pleasant solution to the mystery. It is said that wherever a man may be cast he makes a little world around him. But it seemed rather that for me a world of hope and fear and interest and suspense was forming itself, despite me, encompassing me about so that I could not escape it.

"I will go out," I said to Madame, and left her abruptly. I had no plan or intention—for where could I seek the Vicomte at that hour—but a great desire came over me to get away from this gloomy house, where trouble seemed to move and live.

The streets were empty. I walked slowly to the quai, and then, turning to the left, approached the palace of the D'Orsays, which stood then, though to-day, in a fine irony, the broken walls alone remain, amid the new glory of republican Paris. I knew I was going in the wrong direction, and at length, with a queer feeling of shame, turned and crossed to the Isle St. Louis.

Of course, the Vicomte had not done away with himself! The idea was absurd. Aged men do not lay violent hands upon themselves. It was different for Pawle, a friend of mine, who had shot himself as he descended the club stairs, a ruined man. Nevertheless, I walked instinctively towards the Cathedral of Notre Dame, and past that building to the little square house—like a roadside railway station—where Paris keeps her nameless dead.

Half guiltily I went in at one door and out by the other. Two men lay on the slates—the lowest of the low—and even the sanctifying hand of death could not allay the conviction that the world must necessarily be the richer for their removal from it. I came away and walked towards the river again. Standing on one of the bridges, I never knew which, I looked down at the slow green water. As I stood a municipal guard passed me with a suspicious glance. The clocks of the city struck six in a solemn jangle of tones. The boats were moving on the river—the great unwieldy barges as big as a ship. The streets were now astir. Paris seemed huge and as populous as an ant-hill. I felt the hopelessness of seeking unaided one who purposely hid himself in its streets.

I went back to the Morgue and made some inquiries of the attendant there. Nay, I did more—for why should a man be coward enough to shut his eyes to patent fact?—I gave my name and address to the courteous official and asked him to send for me should any news come his way. It was plain enough that the Vicomte de Clericy had of late been in such a state of mind that the worst fears must needs be kept in view.

I went back to the Faubourg St. Germain and crept quietly into the house of my patron by the side door, of which he himself had given me the key. Despite my noiseless tread, Madame was waiting for me at the head of the stairs.

"Nothing?" she asked.

"Nothing," replied I, and avoided her persistent eyes. To share an unspoken fear is akin to the knowledge of a common crime.

At nine o'clock I sought John Turner in his apartment in the Avenue D'Antan, almost within a stone's throw of the British Embassy. There are some to whom one naturally turns in time of trouble and perplexity, while the existence of others who are equally important in their own estimation is at such moments forgotten. Our fellows seem to move around us in a circle—some step out of the rank and touch us as they pass—one, if it please God, comes out and stands beside us. John Turner had, I suppose, touched me in passing. He was at breakfast when I was shown into his presence.

"You are looking fresh and well," he said, in his abrupt way, "so I suppose you are engaged in some mischief."

"Not exactly. But what I began in play is continuing in earnest."

"Yes," he said, looking at me with his easy smile while he dropped a piece of sugar into his coffee-cup. "Yes; young men are fond of walking into streams without ascertaining the depth on the farther side."

"I suppose you were young yourself once?" retorted I, bringing forward a chair.

"Yes—but I was always fat. Women always laughed at me behind my back. And, with a woman half the fun is to let you know her intention as she passes. I returned the compliment in my sleeve."

"I do not see what women have to do in this matter," said I.

"No—but I do. How is Mademoiselle this morning? Sit down; have a cup of coffee, and tell me all about her."

I sat down, and related to him the events of the past night. Turner's face was grave enough when I had finished, and I saw him note with some surprise that he had allowed his coffee to get cold.

"I don't like the sound of it," he said. "One never knows with a Frenchman—he is never too old to talk of his mother, or make an ass of himself."

The English banker was of the greatest assistance to me during that most anxious day. But we found no clew, nor discovered any reason for the Vicomte's disappearance. I went back in the evening to the Hôtel Clericy, and there found Madame de Clericy and Lucille awaiting me, with that calmness which is admirable when there is nothing else but waiting to be done.

It was at eight o'clock in the evening that the explanation came, from a source as natural as it was unexpected. A letter was delivered by the postman for Madame de Clericy, who at once recognized her husband's unsteady handwriting. She crossed the room, and stood beside me while she opened the envelope. Lucille, seeing the action, frowned, as I thought. I was still under displeasure—still learning that the better sort of woman will not forgive deception so long as she herself is its motive, as cheap cynics would have us believe.

Madame read the letter with that self-repression which was habitual to her, and made me ever wonder what her youth had been. Lucille and I watched her in silence.

"There," she said, and gave me the letter to pass to Lucille, who received it from my hand without taking her eyes from her mother's face. Then I quitted the room, leaving the two women alone. Madame followed me presently to the study, and there gave me the Vicomte's last letter to read. It was short and breathed of affection.

"Do not seek for me," it ran. "I cannot bear my great misfortunes, and the world will, perhaps, be less cruel to two women who have no protector."

Madame handed me the envelope, which bore the Passy postmark, and I read her thoughts easily enough.

I saw John Turner again that evening, also Alphonse Giraud, who had called at the Hôtel Clericy during the day. With these gentlemen I set off the next morning for Passy, taking passage in one of those little river steamers which we had all seen a thousand times, without thinking of a nearer acquaintance.

"This is gay," cried Alphonse, on whom the sunshine had always an enlivening effect, as we sped along. "This is what you call sport—n'est ce pas? For you are a maritime race, is it not so, Howard?"

"Yes," answered I, "we are a maritime race."

"And figure to yourself this is the first time that I am afloat on anything larger than a ferry-boat."

During our short trip Alphonse fully decided that if his fortune should be recovered he would buy a yacht.

"Do you think you can recover it?" he asked quite wistfully, his mind full of this new scheme, and oblivious to the mournful object of our journey.

At Passy we were received with shrugging shoulders and outspread hands.

No, such an old gentleman had not been seen—but the river was large and deep. If one wanted—mon Dieu!—one could do such a thing easily enough. To drag the river—yes—but that cost money. Ten francs a day for each man. It was hard work out there in the stream. And if one found something—name of a dog—it turned on the stomach.

We arranged that two men should drag the river, and, after a weary day, went back to Paris no wiser than we came.

In this suspense a week passed, while I, unwilling to touch my patron's papers until we had certain news of his death, could render little assistance to Madame de Clericy and Lucille. That the latter resented anything in the nature of advice or suggestion was soon made clear enough to me. Nay! she left no doubt of her distrust, and showed this feeling whenever we exchanged words.

"It is a small thing upon which to condemn a man, Mademoiselle," I said to her one morning when chance left us together. "I told you what I thought to be the truth. Fate ruled that I was after all a poor man—but I have not been proved a liar."

"I do not understand you," she answered, with hard eyes. "You are such a strange mixture of good and bad."

An hour afterwards I received a telegram advising me that the body of the Vicomte de Clericy had been found in the river at Passy.

Chapter XIV

A Little Cloud

"Rien ne nous rend si grand qu'une grande douleur."

Alphonse Giraud and I—between whom had sprung up that friendship of contrasts which Madame de Clericy had foreseen—were in constant communication. My summons brought him to the Hôtel Clericy at once, where he found the ladies already apprised of their bereavement. He and I set off again for Passy, by train this time, as our need was more urgent. I despatched instructions to the Vicomte's lawyer to follow by the next train—bringing the undertaker with him. There was no heir to my patron's titles, but it seemed necessary to observe every formality at this the dramatic extinction of a long and noble line.

As we drove through the streets, the newsboys were shrieking some tidings which we had neither time nor inclination to inquire into at that moment. It was a hot July day, and Paris should have been half empty, but the pavements were crowded.

"What is the matter?" I said to Alphonse Giraud, who was too busy with his horse to look about. "See the faces of the men at the cafés—they are wild with excitement and some look scared. There is news afoot."

"My good friend," returned Giraud, "I was in bed when your note reached me. Besides, I only read the sporting columns of the papers."

So we took train to Passy, without learning what it was that seemed to be stirring Paris as a squall stirs the sea.

At Passy there was indeed grim work awaiting us. The Préfet himself was kind enough to busy himself in a matter which was scarcely within his province. He had instructed the police to conduct us to his house, where he received us most hospitably.

"Neither of you is related to the Vicomte?" he said, interrogatively; and we stated our case at once.

"It is well that you did not bring Madame with you," he said. "You forbade her to come?"

And he looked at me with a keenness which, I trust, impressed the police official for whose benefit it was assumed.

"I begged her to remain in Paris."

"Ah!" and he gave a significant laugh. "However—so long as she is not here."

He was a white-faced man, who looked as if he had been dried up by some blanching process. One could imagine that the heart inside him was white also. In his own eyes it was evident that he was a vastly clever man. I thought him rather an ass.

"You know, gentlemen," he said, as he prepared his papers, "the recognition of the body is a mere formality."

"Then let us omit it, Monsieur le Préfet," exclaimed Alphonse, with characteristic cheerfulness; but the remark was treated with contempt.

"In July, gentlemen," went on the Préfet, "the Seine is warm—there are eels—a hundred animalculæ—a score of decomposing elements. However, there are the clothes—the contents of Monsieur le Vicomte's pockets—a signet ring. Shall we go? But first take another glass of wine. If the nerves are sensitive—a few drops of Benedictine?"

"If I may have it in a claret glass," said Alphonse, and he launched into a voluble explanation, to which the Préfet listened with a thin, transparent smile. I thought that he would have been better pleased had some of the Vicomte's titled friends come to observe this formality. But one's grand friends are better kept for fine weather only, and the official had to content himself with the company of a private secretary and the son of a ruined financier.

Alphonse and I had no difficulty in recognizing the small belongings which had been extracted from my old patron's sodden clothing. In the letter case was a letter from myself on some small matter of business. I pointed this out, and signed my name a second time on the yellow and crinkled paper for the further satisfaction of the lawyer. Then we passed into an inner room and stood in the presence of the dead man. The recognition was, as the Préfet had said, a painful formality. Alphonse Giraud and I swore to the clothing—indeed, the linen was marked plainly enough—and we left the undertaker to his work.

Giraud looked at me with a dry smile when we stood in the fresh air again.

"You and I, Howard," he said, "seem to have got on the seamy side of life lately."

And during the journey I saw him shiver once or twice at the recollection of what we had seen. His carriage was awaiting us at the railway station. Alphonse had been brought up in a school where horses and servants are treated as machines. The man who stood at the horse's head was, however, anything but mechanical, for he ran up to us as soon as we emerged from the crowded exit.

"À BERLIN—À BERLIN."

"Monseiur le Baron!" he cried excitedly, with a dull light in his eyes that made a man of him, and no servant. "Has Monsieur le Baron heard the news—the great tidings?"

"No—we have heard nothing. What is your news?"

"The King of Prussia has insulted the French Ambassador at Ems. He struck him on the face, as it is said. And war has been declared by the Emperor. They are going to march to Berlin, Monsieur!"

As he spoke two groups of men swaggered arm in arm along the street. They were singing "Partant pour la Syrie," very much out of tune. Others were crying "À Berlin—à Berlin!"

Alphonse Giraud turned and looked at me with a sudden rush of colour in his cheeks.

"And I, who thought life a matter of coats and neckties," he said, with that quick recognition of his own error that first endeared him to me and made him the better man of the two.

We stood for a few minutes watching the excited groups of men on the Boulevard. At the cafés the street boys were selling newspapers at a prodigious rate, and wherever a soldier could be seen there were many pressing him to drink.

"In Berlin," they shouted, "you will get sour beer, so you must drink good red wine when it is to be had." And the diminutive bulwarks of France were ready enough, we may be sure, to swallow Dutch courage.

"In Berlin!" echoed Giraud, at my side. "Will it end there?"

"There or in Paris," answered I, and lay no claim to astuteness, for the words were carelessly uttered.

We drove through the noisy streets, and Frenchmen never before or since showed themselves to such small advantage—so puerile, so petty, so vain. It was "Berlin" here and "Berlin" there, and "Down with Prussia" on every side. A hundred catchwords, a thousand raised voices, and not one cool head to realize that war is not a game. The very sellers of toys in the gutter had already nicknamed their wares, and offered the passer a black doll under the name of Bismarck, or a monkey on a stick called the King of Prussia.

It was with difficulty that I brought Alphonse Giraud to a grave discussion of the pressing matter we had in hand, for his superficial nature was open to every wind that blew, and now swayed to the tempest of martial ardour that swept across the streets of Paris.

"I think," he said, "I will buy myself a commission. I should like to go to Berlin. Yes—Howard, mon brave, I will buy myself a commission."

"With what?"

"Ah—mon Dieu!—that is true. I have no money. I am ruined. I forgot that."

And he waved a gay salutation of the whip to a passing friend.

"And then, also," he added, with a face suddenly lugubrious, "we have the terrible business of the Vicomte. Howard—listen to me—at all costs the ladies must never see that—must never know. Dieu! it was horrible. I feel all twisted here—as when I smoked my first cigar."

He touched himself on the chest, and with one of his inimitable gestures described in the air a great upheaval.

"I will try to prevent it," I answered.

"Then you will succeed, for your way of suggesting might easily be called by another name. And it is not only the women who obey you. I told Lucille the other day that she was afraid of you, and she blazed up in such a fury of denial that I felt smaller than nature has made me. Her anger made her more beautiful than ever, and I was stupid enough to tell her so. She hates a compliment, you know."

"Indeed, I have never tried her with one."

Alphonse looked at me with grave surprise.

"It is a good thing," he said, "that you do not love her. Name of God! where should I be?"

"But it is with Madame and not Mademoiselle Lucille that we shall have to do this afternoon," I said hastily.

Although he was more or less acknowledged as an aspirant to Lucille's hand, Giraud refused to come within the door when we reached the Hôtel Clericy.

"No," he answered; "they will not want to see me at such a time. It is only when people want to laugh that I am required."

I found Madame quite calm, and all her thoughts were for Lucille. The more a man is brought into contact with maternal love, even if it bear in no way upon his own life, the better he will be for it—for this is surely the loftiest of human feelings.

My own mother having died when I was but an infant, it had never been my lot to live in intimacy with women, until fate guided me to the Hôtel Clericy.

At no time had I felt such respect for that quiet woman, Madame de Clericy, as on this afternoon when widowhood first cast its sable veil over her.

"Lucille," she said at once, "must not be allowed to grieve for me. She has her own sorrow to bear, for she loved her father dearly. Do not let her have any thought for me."

And later, when the gods gave me five minutes alone with Lucille herself—

"You must not," she said, her face drawn and white, her lips quivering, "you must not let mother think that this is more than I can bear. It falls heavier upon her."

I blundered on somehow during those two days, making, no doubt, a hundred mistakes; for what comfort could I offer? What pretence could I make to understand the feelings of these ladies? My task was not so difficult as I had anticipated in regard to the grim coffin lying at Passy. To spare the other, both ladies agreed with me separately that the Vicomte should be buried from Passy as quietly as possible, and Lucille overlooked the fact that the suggestion came from such an unwelcome source as myself.

So, amid the wild excitement of July, 1870, we laid Charles Albert Malaunay, Vicomte de Clericy, to rest among his ancestors in the little church of Senneville, near Nevers. The war fever was at its height, and all France convulsed with passionate hatred for the Prussian.

It is not for one who has found his truest friends—ay, and his keenest enemies—in France to say aught against so great and gifted a people. But it seems, as I look back now, that the French were ripe in 1870 for one of those strokes by which High Heaven teaches nations from time to time through the world's history that human greatness is a small affair.

There are no people so tolerant of folly as the Parisians. It walks abroad in the streets of the great city with such unblushing self-satisfaction—such a brazen sense of its own superiority—that any Englishman must long to import a hundred London street boys, with their sense of ridicule and fearless tongue. At all times the world has possessed an army of geniuses whose greatness consists of faith and not of works—of faith in themselves which takes the outward form of weird clothing, long hair, and a literary or artistic pose. Paris streets were so full of such in 1870 that all thoughtful men could scarce fail to recognise a nation in its decadence.

"The asses preponderate in the streets," said John Turner to me. "You may hear their bray in every café, and France is going to the devil."

And indeed the voices raised in the drinking dens were those of the fool and the knave.

I busied myself with looking into the money affairs of my poor patron, and found them in great disorder. All the ready cash had fallen into the hands of Miste. Some of the estates, as, indeed, I already knew, yielded little or nothing. The commerce of France was naturally paralysed by the declaration of war, and no one wanted a vast old house in the Faubourg St. Germain—a hotbed of Legitimism where no good Buonapartist cared to own a friend or show his face.

I disguised nothing from Madame de Clericy, whom indeed it was hard to deceive.

"Then," she said, "there is no money."

We were in my study, where I was seated at the table, while Madame moved from table to mantelpiece with a woman's keen sight for the blemishes to be found in a bachelor's apartment.

"For the moment you are in need of ready money—that is all. If the war is brought to a speedy termination, all will be set right."

"And if the war is not brought to a speedy termination—you are a second-rate optimist, mon ami—what then?"

"Then I shall have to find some expedient."