coy for his Catholic clients. Well, you offer him
some picture--a souvenir to hang on a panel in his study. The whole
point is to make the price quite clear. But you will see. I will take
you round to call on him myself. I will show you how the thing is
worked."

And delighted at the amazement of the Nabob, who, to flatter him,
exaggerated his surprise still further, and opened his eyes wide with an
air of admiration, the banker enlarged the scope of his lesson--made of
it a veritable course of Parisian and worldly philosophy.

"See, old comrade, what one has to look after in Paris, above everything
else, is the keeping up of appearances. They are the only things that
count--appearances! Now you have not sufficient care for them. You go
about town, your waistcoat unbuttoned, a good-humoured fellow, talking
of your affairs, just what you are by nature. You stroll around just
as you would in the bazaars of Tunis. That is how you have come to get
bowled over, my good Bernard."

He paused to take breath, feeling quite exhausted. In an hour he had
walked farther and spoken more than he was accustomed to do in the
course of a whole year. They noticed, as they stopped, that their walk
and conversation had led them back in the direction of Mora's grave,
which was situated just above a little exposed plateau, whence looking
over a thousand closely packed roofs, they could see Montmartre, the
Buttes Chaumont, their rounded outline in the distance looking like high
waves. In the hollows lights were already beginning to twinkle, like
ships' lanterns, through the violet mists that were rising; chimneys
seemed to leap upward like masts, or steamer funnels discharging their
smoke. Those three undulations, with the tide of Pere Lachaise, were
clearly suggestive of waves of the sea, following each other at equal
intervals. The sky was bright, as often happens in the evening of a
rainy day, an immense sky, shaded with tints of dawn, against which
the family tomb of Mora exhibited in relief four allegorical figures,
imploring, meditative, thoughtful, whose attitudes were made more
imposing by the dying light. Of the speeches, of the official
condolences, nothing remained. The soil trodden down all around, masons
at work washing the dirt from the plaster threshold, were all that was
left to recall the recent burial.

Suddenly the door of the ducal tomb shut with a clash of all its
metallic weight. Thenceforth the late Minister of State