l the Society, and immediately
following, but at a respectful distance, another group, in which he
found himself involved and carried along he knew not how. Young men, old
men, all terribly gloomy and depressed, all marked on the brow with the
same deep furrow, set there by one fixed idea, all expressing with their
eyes the same hatred and distrust of their neighbours. When he had
got over his discomfiture, and was able to identify these persons,
he recognised the faded, hopeless face of old Moser, the candidate
everlasting; the honest expression of Dalzon, the author of 'that
book,' who had failed at the last election; and de Saleles!--and
Guerineau!--Why, they were the 'fish in tow'! They were the men about
whom the Academie 'does not trouble itself,' whom it leaves, hanging
on to a strong hook, to be drawn along in the wake of the ship of fame.
There they all were--all of them, poor drowned fish!--some dead and
under the water; others still struggling, turning up sad and greedy eyes
full of an eager craving, never to be appeased. And while he vowed to
himself to avoid a similar fate, Abel de Freydet followed the bait and
dragged at the line, too firmly struck already to get himself free.

Far away, along the line cleared for the procession, muffled drums
alternated with the blast of trumpets, bringing crowds of bystanders on
the pavement and heads to every window. Then the music again took up the
long-drawn strains of the Hero's March. In the presence of so impressive
a tribute as this national funeral, this proud protest on the part
of humanity, crushed and overcome by death but decking defeat in
magnificence, it was hard to realise that all this pomp was for
Loisillon, Permanent Secretary of the Academie Francaise--for nothing,
servant to nothing.

CHAPTER IX.

EVERY day between four and six, earlier or later according to the time
of year, Paul Astier came to take his _douche_ at Keyser's hydropathic
establishment at the top of the Faubourg Saint-Honore Twenty minutes'
fencing, boxing, or single-stick followed by a bath and a cold _douche_;
then a little halt at the flower-shop, as he came out, to have a
carnation stitched in his buttonhole; then a constitutional as far
as the Arc de l'Etoile, Stenne and the phaeton following close to the
footway. Finally came a turn in the Bois, where Paul, thanks to his
observance of fashionable hygiene, displayed a feminine delicacy of
colouring and a complexion rivalli