t Gemosac as
much as anywhere. The Marquis de Gemosac himself went to Frohsdorff.

"If she had been ten years younger," he said, on his return, "I could
have persuaded her to receive you. She has money. All the influence is
hers. It is she who has had the last word in all our affairs since the
death of the Duc de Berri. But she is old--she is broken. I think she is
dying, my friend."

It was the time of the vintage again. Barebone remembered the last
vintage, and his journey through those provinces that supply all the
world with wine, with Dormer Colville for a companion. Since then he had
journeyed alone. He had made a hundred new friends, had been welcomed
in a hundred historic houses. Wherever he had passed, he had left
enthusiasm behind him--and he knew it.

He had grown accustomed to his own power, and yet its renewed evidence
was a surprise to him every day. There was something unreal in it. There
is always something unreal in fame, and great men know in their own
hearts that they are not great. It is only the world that thinks them
so. When they are alone--in a room by themselves--they feel for a moment
their own smallness. But the door opens, and in an instant they arise
and play their part mechanically.

This had come to be Barebone's daily task. It was so easy to make his
way in this world, which threw its doors open to him, greeted him with
outstretched hands, and only asked him to charm them by being himself.
He had not even to make an effort to appear to be that which he was not.
He had only to be himself, and they were satisfied.

Part of his role was Juliette de Gemosac. He found it quite easy to
make love to her; and she, it seemed, desired nothing better. Nothing
definite had been said by the Marquis de Gemosac. They were not
formally affianced. They were not forbidden to see each other. But
the irregularity of these proceedings lent a certain spice of
surreptitiousness to their intercourse which was not without its charm.
They did not see so much of each other after Loo had spoken to the
Marquis de Gemosac on this subject; for Barebone had to make visits to
other parts of France. Once or twice Juliette herself went to stay with
relatives. During these absences they did not write to each other.

It was, in fact, impossible for Barebone to keep up any correspondence
whatever. He heard that Dormer Colville was still in Paris, seeking to
snatch something from the wreck of Mrs. St. Pierre Lawrence's f