time off my hands, I look no further, and expect no
more. I know well enough the champagne will cease to sparkle, but I
drink it while it foams, and don't trouble myself to lament over it.
Qu'importe? when one bottle's empty, there is another!"

"Ah! it is such women as Madame de Melusine who have taught you that
doctrine," cried Nina, with an energy that rather startled Ernest,
though his nerves were as strong as any man's in Paris. "My romances, as
you term them, still I believe sleep in your heart, but the world you
live in has stifled them. Do you think amusement will always be enough
for you?--do you think you will never want something better than your
empty champagne foam?"

"I hope I shall not, mademoiselle," said Vaughan, bitterly, "for I am
certain I do not believe in it, and am quite sure I should never get it.
Leave me to the roses of my Tritericae; they are all I shall ever enjoy,
and they, at the best, are withered."

"Nina, love," interrupted Selina, coming up with much amiability, "I was
_obliged_ to come and tell you not to be _quite_ so energetic. All the
people in the room are looking at you."

"I dare say they are," said Vaughan, calmly. "It is not often the
Parisians have the pleasure of seeing beauty unaffected, and
fascinations careless of their own charms. Nature, Selina, is unhappily
as rare one side the Channel as the other, and we men appreciate it when
we do see it."

When Vaughan parted from them soon after, he swore at himself for three
things. First, for having driven Bluette, en plein jour, through the
Boulevards, though he had driven Bluette, and such as Bluette, a
thousand times before; secondly, for having been so weak as to
introduce Madame de Melusine to the Gordons; and, thirdly, for
having--he the thorough-paced _Lion_, whose manual was Rochefoucauld,
and tutor in love, De Kock--actually talked romance as if he were Werter
or Paul Flemming, or some other sentimental simpleton.

Vaughan, to his great disgust, felt a fit of blue devils stealing on
him, hurled one or two rose notes waiting for him into the fire with an
oath, smoked half a dozen Manillas fiercely, and then, to get
excitement, went to a dinner at the Rocher de Cancale, played ecarte
with a beau joueur, went to an Opera supper--_not_ to the De
Melusine's--then to Mabille and came home at seven in the morning after
a night such as would have raised every hair off Brutus's head, given a
triumphant glitter to the Ward