f a boxer Paul turned the blow aside, quietly as if he
had been in Keyser's gymnasium, and without letting go the wrist he had
twisted under, said beneath his breath, 'No, no; I won't have that.'

The tough old hillsman struggled violently, but, vigorous as he still
was, he had found his master. At this terrible moment, while father and
son stood face to face, breathing hate at one another, and exchanging
murderous glances, the door of the drawing-room opened a little and
showed the good-natured doll-like smile of a fat lady bedecked with
feathers and flowers. 'Excuse me, dear master, I want just to say a
word--why, Adelaide is here, and M. Paul too. Charming! delightful!
Quite a family group!' Madame Ancelin was right. A family group it was,
a picture of the modern family, spoilt by the crack which runs
through European society from top to bottom, endangering its essential
principles of authority and subordination, and nowhere more remarkable
than here, under the stately dome of the Institute, where the
traditional domestic virtues are judged and rewarded.

CHAPTER XVI.

[Illustration: People were still coming in 316]

It was stifling in the Eighth Chamber, where the Fage case was just
coming on after interminable preliminaries and great efforts on the
part of influential persons to stop the proceedings. Never had this
court-room, whose walls of a mouldy blue and diamond pattern in faded
gilding reeked with the effluvium of rags and misery, never had this
court seen squeezed on its dirty seats and packed in its passages such a
press and such a crowd of fashionable and distinguished persons, so many
flower-trimmed bonnets and spring costumes by the masters of millinery
art, to throw into relief the dead black of the gowns and caps. People
were still coming in through the entrance lobby, where the double doors
were perpetually swinging as the tide flowed on, a wavy sea of thronging
faces upturned beneath the whitish light of the landing. Everyone was
there, all the well-known, well-worn, depressingly familiar personages
that figure at every Parisian festivity, fashionable funeral, or famous
'first night.' There was Marguerite Oger well to the fore, and the
little Countess Foder, and beautiful Mrs. Henry of the American Embassy.
There were the ladies belonging to the Academic confraternity, Madame
Ancein in mauve on the arm of Raverand, the leader of the bar; Madame
Eviza, a bush of little roses surrounded by a b