tures he buys. Isn't that
so?"

"I can't say, dear; I have never been to Manchester. But how can you
think of such things?"

"Don't you like those villas? I love them, and their comfort is secure;
its root is in the earth, the only thing we are sure of. There is more
pagan of life and sentiment in France than elsewhere. Would you not like
to have a Passy villa? Would you not like to live here?"

"One of these days I may buy one, then you shall come to breakfast, and
I'll give you an omelette and a beefsteak. For the present, I shall have
to put up with something less expensive. I must be near my music
lessons. Thanks all the same, dearest."

She sought a reason for the expression of thoughtfulness which had
suddenly come over his face.

"I don't know how it is, but I never see Paris without thinking of
Balzac. You don't know Balzac; one of these days you must read him. The
moment I begin to notice Paris, I think, feel, see and speak Balzac.
That dark woman yonder, with her scornful face, fills my mind with
Balzacian phrases--the celebrated courtesan, celebrated for her diamonds
and her vices, and so on. The little woman in the next carriage, the
Princess de Saxeville, would delight him. He would devote an entire page
to the description of her coat of arms--three azure panels, and so on.
And I should read it, for Balzac made all the world beautiful, even
snobbery. All interesting people are Balzacians. The moment I know that
a man is an admirer of Balzac, a sort of Freemasonry is established
between us, and I am interested in him, as I should be in a man who had
loved a woman whom I had loved."

"But I shouldn't like a woman because I knew that you had loved her."

"You are a woman; but men who have loved the same woman will seek each
other from the ends of the earth, and will take an intense pleasure in
their recollections. I don't know whether that aphorism is to be found
in Balzac; if not, it is an accident that prevented him from writing it,
for it is quite Balzacian--only he would give it a turn, an air of
philosophic distinction to which it would be useless for me to pretend."

"I wonder if I should like him. Tell me about him."

"You would be more likely than most women to appreciate him. Supposing
you put the matter to the test. You would not accept these horses, maybe
you will not refuse a humbler present--an edition of Balzac. There's a
very good one in fifty-two volumes."

"So many as that?"

"Ye