ourselves feebly relative, and in
comparison with whom, for that matter, or with one of whom, I remember
an occasion of my having to sink to insignificance. There was at the
Institution little of a staff--besides waiters and bonnes; but it
embraced, such as it was, M. Mesnard as well as M. Bonnefons--M. Mesnard
of the new generation, instructor in whatever it might be, among the
arts, that didn't consist of our rolling our r's, and with them, to help
us out, more or less our eyes. It is significant that this elegant
branch is now quite vague to me; and I recall M. Mesnard, in fine, as no
less modern and cheap than M. Bonnefons was rare and unappraiseable. He
had nevertheless given me his attention, one morning, doubtless
patiently enough, in some corner of the villa that we had for the moment
practically to ourselves--I seem to see a small empty room looking on
the garden; when there entered to us, benevolently ushered by Madame
Fezandie, a small boy of very fair and romantic aspect, as it struck me,
a pupil newly arrived. I remember of him mainly that he had a sort of
nimbus of light curls, a face delicate and pale and that deeply hoarse
voice with which French children used to excite our wonder. M. Mesnard
asked of him at once, with interest, his name, and on his pronouncing it
sought to know, with livelier attention, if he were then the son of M.
Arsene Houssaye, lately director of the Theatre Francais. To this
distinction the boy confessed--all to such intensification of our
repetiteur's interest that I knew myself quite dropped, in comparison,
from his scheme of things. Such an origin as our little visitor's
affected him visibly as dazzling, and I felt justified after a while, in
stealing away into the shade. The beautiful little boy was to live to be
the late M. Henry Houssaye, the shining hellenist and historian. I have
never forgotten the ecstasy of hope in M. Mesnard's question--as a
light on the reverence then entertained for the institution M. Houssaye
the elder had administered.

XXVIII

There comes to me, in spite of these memories of an extended connection,
a sense as of some shrinkage or decline in the _beaux jours_ of the
Institution; which seems to have found its current run a bit thick and
troubled, rather than with the pleasant plash in which we at first
appeared all equally to bathe. I gather, as I try to reconstitute, that
the general enterprise simply proved a fantasy not workable, and tha