he was in Paris, and every morning early he could be seen with
Jacques riding up the Champs Elysee and out to the Bois de Boulogne.
Every afternoon at three he sat for "Monmouth" or the "King of Ys" with
his horse in his uncle's garden.

Ian Belward might have lived in a fashionable part; he preferred the
Latin Quarter, with incursions into the other at fancy. Gaston lived for
three days in the Boulevard Haussman, and then took apartments, neither
expensive nor fashionable, in a quiet street. He was surrounded
by students and artists, a few great men and a host of small men:
Collarossi's school here and Delacluse's there: models flitting in and
out of the studios in his court-yard, who stared at him as he rode, and
sought to gossip with Jacques--accomplished without great difficulty.

Jacques was transformed. A cheerful hue grew on his face. He had been an
exile, he was now at home. His French tongue ran, now with words in the
patois of Normandy, now of Brittany; and all with the accent of French
Canada, an accent undisturbed by the changes and growths of France. He
gossiped, but no word escaped him which threw any light on his master's
history.

Soon, in the Latin Quarter, they were as notable as they had been at
Ridley Court or in London. On the Champs Elysee side people stared
at the two: chiefly because of Gaston's splendid mount and Jacques's
strange broncho. But they felt that they were at home. Gaston's French
was not perfect, but it was enough for his needs. He got a taste of that
freedom which he had handed over to the dungeons of convention two years
before. He breathed. Everything interested him so much that the life he
had led in England seemed very distant.

He wrote to Delia, of course. His letters were brief, most interesting,
not tenderly intimate, and not daily. From the first they puzzled her
a little, and continued to do so; but because her mother said, "What an
impossible man!" she said, "Perfectly possible! Of course he is not like
other men; he is a genius."

And the days went on.

Gaston little loved the purlieus of the Place de l'Opera. One evening
at a club in the Boulevard Malesherbes bored him. It was merely
Anglo-American enjoyment, dashed with French drama. The Bois was more to
his taste, for he could stretch his horse's legs; but every day he could
be found before some simple cafe in Montparnasse, sipping vermouth, and
watching the gay, light life about him. He sat up with delight to