suffered from them. The man I give up to you; as
to the poet, it is a different thing. In the opinion of every one, the
peculiarity of M. D'Argenton's genius is the sympathetic quality of his
verses. Musset had it irksome degree; and I think that the beginning
of this poem, 'The Parting,' is very touching: the young woman who goes
away in the morning fog in her ball-dress without one word of farewell."

Jack could not restrain himself. "But the woman is yourself," he cried,
"and you know under what circumstances you left."

She answered, coldly,--

"Is it kind in you, my son, to recall such humiliations? Had M.
D'Argenton treated me a thousand times worse than he has, I should be
able, I hope, to recognize the fact that he stands at the head of the
poets of France. More than one person who speaks of him with contempt
to-day, will yet be proud of having known him and of having sat at his
table!" And as she finished she left the room with great dignity. Jack
took his seat at his desk, but his heart was not in his work. He felt
that "the enemy," as in his childish days he had called the vicomte,
was gradually making his approaches. In fact Amaury d'Argenton was as
unhappy apart from Charlotte as she was herself. Victim and executioner,
indispensable to each other, he felt profoundly the emptiness of divided
lives. From the first hour of their separation the poet had adopted
a dramatic and Byronic tone as of a broken heart. He was seen in the
restaurants at night, surrounded by a group of flatterers who talked
of her; he wished to have every one know his misery and its details;
he wished to have people think that he was drowning his sorrows in
dissipation. When he said, "Waiter! bring me some pure absinthe," it was
that some one at the next table might whisper, "He is killing himself by
inches--all for a woman!"

D'Argenton succeeded simply in disordering his stomach and injuring his
constitution. His "attacks" were more frequent, and Charlotte's absence
was extremely inconvenient. What other woman would ever have endured his
perpetual complaints? Who would administer his powders and tisanes.
He was afraid, too, to be alone, and made some one, Hirsch or another,
sleep on a sofa in his room. The evenings were dreary because he was
environed by disorder and dust, which all women, even that foolish Ida,
contrive to get rid of in some way. Neither the fire nor the lamp would
burn, and currents of air whistled under all the