vantage. Although beyond doubt _clever_, he was
universally esteemed a much more intellectual man than he really was,
and this through no voluntary deceitfulness on his part, but owing to a
method he had unconsciously adopted of exhibiting his wares with their
most favorable aspect to the front. He was well read, but not deeply
read, and yet all Paris considered him a profound scholar; he was quick
and epigrammatic in his appreciation and expression of ideas, as men of
cultivation and varied experience are apt to be, but he enjoyed the
reputation of being a wit, and finally having merely lounged through the
world, impelled by a spirit of restlessness, begotten of great wealth
and idleness, society looked upon him as a bold and adventurous
traveller. One gift he most certainly possessed: he was vastly amusing
and entertaining, and resembled in one respect the Abbe Galiani, as
described by Diderot; for he was indeed "a treasure on rainy days, and
if the cabinet-makers made such things, everybody would have one in the
country." He not only knew everybody in Paris, but he possessed an
extraordinary faculty of drawing people out, and forcing them to make
themselves amusing. No man was in his society long before he discovered
himself openly discussing his most cherished hobby, or airily
scattering as seed for trivial conversation the fruit of long years of
experience and reflection. His hotel in the Rue de Varenne was the
resort of all that was most remarkable and extraordinary in the
fashionable, the artistic, the diplomatic, and the scientific world. His
intimacy with the Abbe Gerard was one of long standing: they mutually
amused each other; the keen intellect of the priest found much that was
interesting in the shallow but attractive and brilliant nature of the
layman; while the Duke entertained feelings of the warmest admiration
for a man who, having risen from nothing, enlivened the most exclusive
coteries with his graceful learning and charming wit.

It was one of the peculiar whims of Octave de Frontignan never to have
an even number of guests at his dinner table. His soirees indeed were
attended by hundreds, but his dinner parties rarely exceeded seven
(including himself), and in many cases he only invited two. On this
especial occasion the only guest asked to meet the Abbe Gerard was the
celebrated diplomatist and millionaire the Prince Paul Pomerantseff.
This most extraordinary personage had for the past six years ke