he little _Polonaise_?" I asked, as we sipped
_Amer Picon_ and stared with fresh interest at each new boot and ankle
that passed. Paris in August is like another place in May.

"Why don't you come along?" queried Sitgreaves in reply, "and we could
go at once.... Oh, I know that you are in no mood for pleasure. You
see the point is that I shall have to wait. Marcel will have to send
for the _fille_. It is a bore to wait in a room with red curtains and
a picture of _Amour et Psyche_ on the walls.... What have you been
doing?" He paid the _consommation_ and started to leave without
waiting for a reply, because he knew of my complaisance. I rose with
him and we walked down the boulevard.

"What is there to do in Paris in August but to enjoy oneself?" I
asked. "I have made friends with an _apache_ and his _gigolette_. We
eat bread and cheese and drink bad wine on the fortifications.... In
the afternoon I walk. Sometimes I go to the Luxembourg gardens to hear
the band bray sad music, or to watch the little boys play _diavolo_,
or sail their tiny boats about the fountain pond; sometimes I walk
quite silently up the Avenue Gabriel, with its _triste_ line of trees,
and dream that I am a Grand Duke; in the evening there are again the
_terrasses_ of the cafes, dinner in Montmartre at the Clou, or the
Cou-Cou, a _revue_ at La Cigale, but it is all governed, my day and my
night, by what happens and by whom I meet.... Have you seen Jacques
Blanche's portrait of Nijinsky?"

"I think it is Picasso that interests me now," Sitgreaves was saying.
"He puts wood and pieces of paper into his composition; architecture,
that's what it is.... I don't go to Blanche's any more. It's too
delightfully perfect, the atmosphere there.... The books are by all
the famous writers, and they are all dedicated to Blanche; the
pictures are all of the great men of today, and they are all painted
by Blanche; the music is played by the best musicians.... Do you know,
I think Blanche is the one man who has made a successful profession of
being an amateur--unless one excepts Robert de la Condamine.... You
can scarcely call a man who does so much a dilettante. Yes, I think he
is an amateur in the best sense."

"I met the Countess of Jena there the other day," I responded. "She
had scarcely left the room before three people volunteered, _sans
rancune_, to tell her story. She is a devout Catholic, and her husband
contrived in some way to substitute a spy for the