of sensation had
no effect upon me.

"You are wonderfully fresh, Lazarre," the marquis said. "If you were not
so big and male I would call you mademoiselle! Did they never sin in the
American backwoods?"

Then he took me in his arms like a mother, and kissed me, saying, "Dear
son and sire, I am worse than your great-grandfather!"

Yet my zest for the gaiety of the old city grew as much as he desired.
The golden dome of the Invalides became my bubble of Paris, floating
under a sunny sky.

Whenever I went to the hotel which De Chaumont had hired near the
Tuileries, Madame de Ferrier received me kindly; having always with her
Mademoiselle de Chaumont or Miss Chantry, so that we never had a word in
private. I thought she might have shown a little feeling in her rebuff,
and pondered on her point of view regarding my secret rank. De
Chaumont, on the other hand, was beneath her in everything but wealth.
How might she regard stooping to him?

Miss Chantry was divided between enforced deference and a Saxon
necessity to tell me I would not last. I saw she considered me one of
the upstarts of the Empire, singularly favored above her brother, but
under my finery the same French savage she had known in America.

Eagle brought Paul to me, and he toddled across the floor, looked at me
wisely, and then climbed my knee.

Doctor Chantry had been living in Paris a life above his dreams of
luxury. When occasionally I met my secretary he was about to drive out;
or he was returning from De Chaumont's hotel. And there I caught my poor
master reciting poems to Annabel, who laughed and yawned, and made faces
behind her fan. I am afraid he drew on the marquis' oldest wines,
finding indulgence in the house; and he sent extravagant bills to me for
gloves and lawn cravats. It was fortunate that De Chaumont took him
during my absence. He moved his belongings with positive rapture. The
marquis and I both thought it prudent not to publish my journey.

Doctor Chantry went simpering, and abasing himself before the French
noble with the complete subservience of a Saxon when a Saxon does become
subservient.

"The fool is laughable," said the Marquis du Plessy. "Get rid of him,
Lazarre. He is fit for nothing but hanging upon some one who will feed
him."

"He is my master," I answered. "I am a fool myself."

"You will come back from Mittau convinced of that, my boy. The wise
course is to join yourself to events, and let them draw your chariot