face? Is she a duchess, or a danseuse, a
little actress you're going to patronise, or a millionnaire you're going
to marry?"

"I can't tell you," laughed Vaughan. "I've not an idea who she may be. I
saw her last evening coming out of the Francais, and picked up her
bouquet for her as she was getting into her carriage. The face was
young, the smile very pretty and bright, and, as they daguerreotyped
themselves in my mind, I thought I might as well transfer them to paper
before newer beauties chased them out of it."

"Diable! and you don't know who she is? However, we'll soon find out.
That gold hair mustn't be lost. But get your breakfast, pray, Ernest,
and let us be off to poor Armand's sale."

"That's the way we mourn our dead friends," said Vaughan, with a sneer,
pouring out his coffee. "Armand is jesting, laughing, and smoking with
us one day, the next he's pitched out of his carriage going down to
Asnieres, and all we think of is--that his horses are for sale. If I
were found in the Morgue to-morrow, your first emotion, Emile, would be,
'Vaughan's De l'Orme will be sold. I must go and bid for it directly.'"

De Concressault laughed as he looked up at a miniature of Marion de
l'Orme, once taken for the Marquis of Gordon. "I fancy, mon garcon,
there'll be too many sharks after all your possessions for me to stand
any chance."

"True enough," said Vaughan; "and I question if they'll wait till my
death before they come down on 'em. But I don't look forward. I take
life as it comes. Vogue la galere! At least, I've _lived_, not
vegetated." And humming his refrain,

"L'amour! l'amour!
La nuit comme le jour!"

he lounged down the stairs and drove to a sale in the Faubourg St.
Germain, where one of his Paris chums, a virtuoso and connoisseur, had
left endless _meubles_ to be sold by his duns and knocked down to his
friends.

Vaughan was quite right; he _had_ lived, and at a pretty good pace, too.
When he came of age a tolerably good fortune awaited him, but it had not
been long in his hands before he contrived to let it slip through them.
He'd been brought up at Sainte Barbe, after being expelled from Rugby,
knew all the best of the "jeunesse doree," and could not endure any
place after Paris, where his life was as sparkling and brilliant as the
foam off a glass of champagne. Wild and careless, high spirited, and
lavish in his Opera suppers, his _cabaret_ dinners, his Trois Freres
banquets, his lansquenet part