on lead you?"

"To what should it lead me? To comprehend, as I have told you," replied
Dorsenne.

"And then?"

"There is no then," answered the young man, "one debauchery is like
another."

"But among the people whom you see living thus," said Montfanon, after
a pause, "there are some surely whom you like and whom you dislike, for
whom you entertain esteem and for whom you feel contempt? Have you not
thought that you have some duties toward them, that you can aid them in
leading better lives?"

"That," said Dorsenne, "is another subject which we will treat of some
other day, for I am afraid now of being late.... Adieu."

"Adieu," said the Marquis, with evident regret at parting. Then,
brusquely: "I do not know why I like you so much, for in the main you
incarnate one of those vices of mind which inspire me with the most
horror, that dilettanteism set in vogue by the disciples of Monsieur
Renan, and which is the very foundation of the decline. You will recover
from it, I hope. You are so young!" Then becoming again jovial and
mocking: "May you enjoy yourself in your descent of Courtille; I
almost forgot that I had a message to give to you for one of the
supernumeraries of your troop. Will you tell Gorka that I have dislodged
the book for which he asked me before his departure?"

"Gorka," replied Julien, "has been in Poland three months on family
business. I just told you how that trip cost him his mistress."

"What," said Montfanon, "in Poland? I saw him this morning as plainly as
I see you. He passed the Fountain du Triton in a cab. If I had not been
in such haste to reach Ribalta's in time to save the Montluc, I could
have stopped him, but we were both in too great a hurry."

"You are sure that Gorka is in Rome--Boleslas Gorka?" insisted Dorsenne.

"What is there surprising in that?" said Montfanon. "It is quite natural
that he should not wish to remain away long from a city where he has
left a wife and a mistress. I suppose your Slav and your Anglo-Saxon
have no prejudices, and that they share their Venetian with a
dilettanteism quite modern. It is cosmopolitan, indeed.... Well, once
more, adieu.... Deliver my message to him if you see him, and," his face
again expressed a childish malice, "do not fail to tell Mademoiselle
Hafner that her father's daughter will never, never have this volume. It
is not for intriguers!" And, laughing like a mischievous schoolboy, he
pressed the book more tightly under his ar