around him and the sights affected him with
vividness and force.

Here, in the centre of the greatest civilization that the world has ever
seen, he stood fresh from that primeval land.

He had seen civilization with her mask off, her hair in disorder, her foot
on the body of a naked slave and the haft of a blood-stained knife between
her teeth, he was watching her now with her mask on, her hair in powder,
Caruso singing to her; sitting amidst her court of poets, philosophers,
churchmen, placemen, politicians, and financiers.

It was a strange experience.

He took his way down the Rue de Rivoli and then to the Avenue Malakoff,
and as he walked the face of the philosophic Schaunard faded from his mind
and was replaced by the vision of Maxine Berselius. Opposites in the world
of thought often awaken images one of the other, just because of the fact
that they are opposites.

Maxine was not at Trouville. She had met them at the railway station on
the day of their arrival.

_La Joconde_ had been cabled for from Leopoldsville, and the great yacht
had brought them to Marseilles. Nothing had been cabled as to Berselius's
accident or illness, and Madame Berselius had departed for Trouville,
quite unconscious of anything having happened to her husband.

Maxine was left to discover for herself the change in her father. She had
done so at the very first sight of him, but as yet she had said no word.

CHAPTER XXXVI

DREAMS

When Adams arrived at the Avenue Malakoff he found Berselius in the
library. He was seated in a big armchair, and M. Pinchon, his secretary, a
man dry-looking as an account-book, bald, and wearing spectacles, was just
leaving the room with some shorthand notes of business letters to be
typed.

Berselius was much changed; his hair was quite gray, his eyes, once so
calm, forceful, and intrinsically brilliant, had lost their lustre, his
face wore the expression of a confirmed invalid.

Great discontent was the predominant feature of this expression.

It was only within the last few days that this had appeared. On recovering
from the hardships of the forest and on the voyage home, though weak
enough, he had been serene, mild, amiable and rather listless, but during
the last few days something was visibly troubling him.

He had "gone off," to use an expressive phrase sometimes employed by
physicians.

A strange thing had happened to Berselius. Ever since the recovery of his
memory his new se