an impression of arches erected as if for a triumph, of a curious
crowd, of flowers thrown in his path. So true is it that things exist
only through the eyes that see them. What a success! The duke, just as
they parted, urging him to come and see his gallery; which meant that
the doors of the hotel de Mora would be open to him within a week.
Felicia Ruys consenting to make a bust of him, so that at the next
exposition the junk-dealer's son would have his portrait in marble by
the same great artist whose name was appended to that of the Minister
of State. Was not this the gratification of all his childish vanities?

Revolving thus their thoughts, cheerful or sinister, they walked on
side by side, preoccupied, distraught, so that Place Vendome, silent
and flooded by a cold, blue light, rang beneath their feet before they
had spoken a word.

"Already!" said the Nabob. "I would have liked to walk a little
farther. What do you say?" And as they walked around the square two or
three times, he emitted in puffs the exuberant joy with which he was
full to overflowing.

"How fine it is! What pleasure to breathe! God's thunder! I wouldn't
give up my evening for a hundred thousand francs. What a fine fellow
that Jenkins is! Do you like Felicia Ruys' type of beauty? For my part,
I dote on it. And the duke, what a perfect great nobleman! so simple,
so amiable. That is fashionable Paris, eh, my son?"

"It's too complicated for me--it frightens me," said Paul de Gery in a
low voice.

"Yes, yes, I understand," rejoined the other, with adorable conceit.
"You aren't used to it yet, but one soon gets into it, you know! See
how perfectly at my ease I am after only a month."

"That's because you had been in Paris before. You used to live here."

"I? Never in my life. Who told you that?"

"Why, I thought so," replied the young man, and added, as a multitude
of thoughts came crowding into his mind:

"What have you ever done to this Baron Hemerlingue? There seems to be a
deadly hatred between you."

The Nabob was taken aback for a moment. That name Hemerlingue, suddenly
obtruded upon his joy, reminded him of the only unpleasant episode of
the evening.

"To him, as to everybody else," he said in a sad voice, "I never did
anything but good. We began life together in a miserable way. We grew
and prospered side by side. When he attempted to fly with his own wings
I always assisted him, supported him as best I could. It was through me