mby's."

"I shall see that no such demand is made upon you. But you must come and
visit her, Paul. She has few friends."

"Poor little girl. I will come when you like, Don. To-night I am going
to Thessaly's, and I wish you could join the party. He would welcome
you, I know."

"Impossible, unfortunately. I am dining with a man who was attached to
us for a time."

"Don't fill up your entire programme, Don, and leave no room for me.
Give me at least one whole day."

"To-morrow, then."

"Splendid. Thessaly will be joining us in the evening, too, and I am
anxious for you to renew your acquaintance. We had projected a ramble
around London's Bohemian haunts. I must keep in touch with the ideas of
contemporary writers, painters and composers, for these it is who make
opinion. Then I propose to plumb the depths of our modern dissipations,
Don. The physician's diagnosis is based upon symptoms of sickness."

"Certainly. A nation is known not by its virtues, but by its vices. In
the haversack of the fallen Frenchman it is true that we may find a silk
stocking, or a dainty high-heeled shoe, but in that of the German we
find a liver sausage. Most illuminating, I think. To-morrow, then. Shall
I call here for you? Yvonne might like to lunch with us. The wife of a
genius must often be very lonely."

VIII

Before the bookstall in the entrance to the Cafe Royal, Paul stood on
the following night, with Jules Thessaly and Don.

"I shall never cease to regret Kirchner," said Thessaly. "He popularised
thin legs, and so many women have them. Ha, Mario! here you are again on
the front page of a perfectly respectable weekly journal, just alighting
from the train. You look like an intelligent baboon, and your wife will
doubtless instruct Nevin directly her attention is drawn to this
picture. It creates an impression that she was not sober at the time.
What a public benefactor was he who introduced popular illustrated
journalism. He brought all the physical deformities of the great within
reach of the most modest purse."

"It is very curious," said Don, "but you do not appear in the
photograph, Mr. Thessaly. You appear in none that I have seen."

"Modesty is a cloak, Captain Courtier, which can even defy the camera.
Let us inhale the gratifying odour, suggestive of truffles frying in
oil, which is the hall-mark of your true cafe, and is as ambergris in
the nostrils of the gourmand. Do you inhale it?"

"It is unavoidable," replie