babies in white capes came
pouring from all the neighboring streets, and made their resplendent way
toward the Tuileries. Lampron was in a talkative mood. He was pleased
with the hanging of his pictures, and his plan of campaign against
Mademoiselle Jeanne.

"She is sure to have heard of it, Fabien, and perhaps is there already.
Who can tell?"

"Oh, cease your humbug! Yes, very possibly she is there before us. I
have had a feeling that she would be for these last four days."

"You don't say so!"

"I have pictured her a score of times ascending the staircase on
her father's arm. We are at the foot, lost in the crowd. Her noble,
clear-cut profile stands out against the Gobelin tapestries which frame
it with their embroidered flowers; one would say some maiden of bygone
days had come to life, and stepped down from her tapestried panel."

"Gentlemen!" said Lampron, with a sweep of his arm which took in the
whole of the Place de la Concorde, "allow me to present to you the
intending successor of Counsellor Mouillard, lawyer, of Bourges. Every
inch of him a man of business!"

We were getting near. Crowds were on their way to the exhibition from
all sides, women in spring frocks, many of the men in white waistcoats,
one hand in pocket, gayly flourishing their canes with the other,
as much as to say, "Look at me-well-to-do, jaunty, and out in fine
weather." The turnstiles were crowded, but at last we got through. We
made but one step across the gravel court, the realm of sculpture where
antique gods in every posture formed a mythological circle round the
modern busts in the central walk. There was no loitering here, for my
heart was elsewhere. We cast a look at an old wounded Gaul, an ancestor
unhonored by the crowd, and started up the staircase--no Jeanne to lead
the way. We came to the first room of paintings. Sylvestre beamed like a
man who feels at home.

"Quick, Sylvestre, where is the sketch? Let's hurry to it."

But he dragged me with him around several rooms.

Have you ever experienced the intoxication of color which seizes the
uninitiated at the door of a picture-gallery? So many staring hues
impinge upon the eyes, so many ideas take confused shape and struggle
together in the brain, that the eyes grow weary and the brain harassed.
It hovers undecided like an insect in a meadow full of flowers. The
buzzing remarks of the crowd add to the feeling of intoxication. They
distract one's attention before it can se