the stone palm. There was no word with it. Senor Nobody had no
name. He turned and strode back to the horses, mounted, and with Gil
rode from the naked, sunny plain.

CHAPTER XXVI

The Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle lay a year in the future. Yet in Paris,
under certain conditions and auspices, Scot or Englishman might dwell
in security enough. The Jacobite remnant, foe to the British
government, found France its best harbor. A quietly moving Scots
laird, not Jacobite, yet might be lumped by the generality with those
forfeited Scots gentlemen who, having lost all in a cause urged and
supported by France, now, without scruple, took from King Louis a
pension that put food in their mouths, coats on their backs, roofs
over their heads. Alexander Jardine, knowing the city, finding quiet
lodgings in a quiet street, established himself in Paris. It was
winter now, cold, bright weather.

In old days he had possessed not a few acquaintances in this city. A
circle of thinkers, writers, painters, had powerfully attracted him.
Circumstances brought him now again into relation with one or two of
this group. He did not seek them as formerly he had done. But neither
could he be said to avoid companionship when it came his way. It was
not his wish to become singular or solitary. But he was much alone,
and while he waited for Ian he wandered in the rich Paris of old,
packed life. Street and Seine-side and market knew him; he stood in
churches, and before old altarpieces smoked by candles. Booksellers
remarked him. Where he might he heard music; sometimes he would go to
the play. He carried books to his lodging. He sat late at night over
volumes new and old. The lamp burned dim, the fire sank; he put aside
reading and knowledge gained through reading, and sat, sunk deep into
a dim desert within himself; at last got to bed and fell to sleep and
to dreams that fatigued, that took him nowhere. When the next day was
here he wandered again through the streets.

One of his old acquaintances he saw oftener than he did others. This
was a scholar, a writer, an encyclopedist of to-morrow who liked the
big Scot and to be in his company. One day, chance met, they leaned
together upon the parapet of a bridge, and watched the crossing
throng. "One's own particles in transit! Can you grasp that,
Deschamps?"

"I have heard it advanced. No. It is hard to hold."

"It is like a mighty serpent. You would think you had it and then it
is gone.... If