fficult for anything less than the wonderful
intelligence of lovers between whom no wall can prevent the stolen
interchange of tokens, to have ventured private talk of their own amid
the excited converse which seemed all eyes, all tongues, all ears,
admitting no one present to abstract himself from the common emotion.
Englishmen do not recognise the old classic law which limited the number
of guests, where banquets are meant to be pleasant, to that of the
Nine-Muses. They invite guests so numerous, and so shy of launching talk
across the table, that you may talk to the person next to you not less
secure from listeners than you would be in talking with the stranger
whom you met at a well in the Sahara. It is not so, except on state
occasions, at Paris. Difficult there to retire into solitude with your
next neighbour. The guests collected by Duplessis completed with himself
the number of the Sacred Nine--the host, Valerie, Rochebriant, Graham,
Isaura, Signora Venosta, La Duchesse de Tarascon, the wealthy and
high-born Imperialist, Prince --------, and last and least, one who
shall be nameless.

I have read somewhere, perhaps in one of the books which American
superstition dedicates to the mysteries of Spiritualism, how a gifted
seer, technically styled medium, sees at the opera a box which to other
eyes appears untenanted and empty, but to him is full of ghosts, well
dressed in costume de-regle, gazing on the boards and listening to
the music. Like such ghosts are certain beings whom I call Lookers-on.
Though still living, they have no share in the life they survey, they
come as from another world to hear and to see what is passing in ours.
In ours they lived once, but that troubled sort of life they have
survived. Still we amuse them as stage-players and puppets amuse
ourselves. One of these Lookers-on completed the party at the house of
Duplessis.

How lively, how animated the talk was at the financier's pleasant table
that day, the 8th of July! The excitement of the coming war made itself
loud in every Gallic voice, and kindled in every Gallic eye. Appeals at
every second minute were made, sometimes courteous, sometimes sarcastic,
to the Englishman--promising son of an eminent statesman, and native
of a country in which France is always coveting an ally, and always
suspecting an enemy. Certainly Graham could not have found a less
propitious moment for asking Isaura if she really were changed. And
certainly the honour